Barbara McClintock Barbara McClintock was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine (1983) for her discoveries in genetics. Throughout her career, she maintained an interest in marine biology but was best noted for her experiments on chromosome exchange and she showed that new varieties of plants and animals could be developed. Her later experiments showed that damaged chromosomes could mend themselves. Many scientists had difficulty understanding her work but she persisted and did experiments hundreds of times to prove that they were accurate. Eventually, she became well respected among the scientific community as an outstanding biologist.