The reason she called them controlling elements is that these elements actually control the expression of genes. And, she was the first to identify what is now considered to be a transacting mutation; a mutation that influences the expression of another gene unlinked in trans somewhere else in the genome. And it was right around that same time that [Francois] Jacob and [Jacques] Monod were working on similar sorts of phenomena in bacteria. And, of course, when she was here, the bacterial group led by Milislav Demerec, which included people like Evelyn Witkin, who was a great friend of hers, were working very much on this sort of area and so she saw the parallels right away. She was very excited by those issues at the time and actually transposition is almost a secondary thing that she didn't consider to be so important.

Dr. Robert Martiennsen is a plant biologist, Howard Hughes Medical Institute-Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation investigator, and professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Martiennsen attended Emmanuel College, Cambridge, completing his BA in 1982 and continuing on to his PhD in 1986 on the molecular genetics of alpha-amylase gene families in common wheat. He received an EMBO postdoctoral fellowship with University of California, Berkeley. In 1989, he was hired as a principal investigator at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. As a young scientist, he worked closely with Barbara McClintock. His awards and honors include the Newcomb Cleveland Prize, McClintock Prize, and Science’s Breakthrough of the Year in 2002 and the Kumho International Science Award in Plant Biology and Biotechnology (2001).