Barbara McClintock was a celebrated geneticist whose 70 years of meticulous experiments in the genetics of maize, or corn, have been lauded for their contributions to today's most cutting-edge technology and science, including genetic engineering and bacterial reactions to antibiotics. Winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize, she first became interested in genetics while studying at Cornell University in the 1920s. The threads of McClintock's remarkable work form the struggles and achievements of one of the most important scientific minds of our time.