Jacqueline K. Barton, a chemistry professor at Caltech, has been awarded the prestigious National Medal of Science, becoming the first woman at the Pasadena campus to receive what is considered the federal government’s highest honor to scientists.
According to an announcement Tuesday, the White House cited Barton for her discovery of a new property of the DNA helix and her experiments about long-range electron transfers in DNA. She has built electrical sensors capable of detecting DNA mutations and proteins that can distort DNA, experiments that may aid research in such diseases as colon and breast cancer, officials said.
Barton was one of seven recipients of this year’s medal, a prize that her husband Peter Dervan, also a Caltech chemist, won in 2006. In 1991, Barton received a MacArthur fellowship, one of the so-called genius awards that give its recipients $500,000 with no strings attached to pursue their interests.
Born in New York, Barton, 59, earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Barnard College and her doctorate at Columbia University. She joined the Caltech faculty in 1989 and now chairs the division of chemistry and chemical engineering there.
Caltech President Jean-Lou Chameau, in a statement, said the medal confirms the school’s opinion that Barton “is an enormously talented scientist whose work and creativity have had a significant impact on our world and how we understand it.”
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-- Larry Gordon
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