Barbara McClintock was the first female who won an unshared Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1983. Just 35 years after her actual discovery of transposons (aka jumping genes), and only after her research was replicated by male scientists. Sexism was rampant in the world of Science then, and still is now (check out Netflix for "Picture a scientist".

You may find out more about her if you have the opportunity to read this book titled "A feeling for the organism" by Evelyn Fox Keller.

Or if you prefer a short video clip explaining why Barbara McClintock is so awesome, check out the YouTube video below!

Everybody knows Mendel (another unsung hero when he was alive), but do you know who Thomas Hunt Morgan is?

He was also a geneticist who carried out research slightly before Barbara McClintock's time and was famous for his genetic experiments on fruit flies. The genetic crosses shown in the webpage is explained in the section below.

A little background information:

Thomas Hunt Morgan worked with Hermann Joseph Muller. Hermann Joseph Muller carried out mutation experiments on fruit flies. He would expose the fruit flies to x-rays (radiation is a mutagen) which induced mutations. He was eventually awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1946 for his experiments on the mutagenic effects of x-rays. Some of the fruit fly mutants created where also studied by Thomas Hunt Morgan.

With respect to Nobel Prizes, Thomas Hunt Morgan himself was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in earlier in 1933 for his "discoveries concerning the role played by chromosome in heredity".

The inheritance of eye colour in fruit flies is an X-linked inheritance pattern.

The wild type (aka original) allele for eye colour is a dominant, and codes for a red-eye phenotype.

The mutant allele (probably created from the mutation experiments in the fly lab) for eye colour is recessive, and codes for a white-eye phenotype.

The gene for eye colour in fruit was then discovered to be found on the X-chromosome. Thus, the inheritance of eye colour in fruit flies follows an X-linked pattern.

In the first cross on the digram on the left, a homozygous red-eyed female was crossed with a white-eyed male. The offspring created in this cross were heterozygous, and displayed a red-eye phenotype.

These heterozygous red-eyed female flies where then crossed with a red-eyed male flies, resulting in a phenotypic ratio of 2 red-eyed female : 1 red-eyed male : 1 white-eyed male.

Just imagine the number of fruit flies and bananas Thomas Hunt Morgan had in his laboratory. Definitely a lot more logistically heavy compared to managing a garden of green pea plants.