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Filter by category and discipline, then by continent, country and century of birth. Countries not yet represented can be drafted at the research desk.

16 figures

Barbara McClintock

1902 – 1992

Discovered jumping genes decades before the field caught up.

United States·BiologyNobel

Rachel Carson

1907 – 1964

Silent Spring launched the environmental movement and got DDT banned.

United States·Biology · Literature

Rita Levi-Montalcini

1909 – 2012

Discovered nerve growth factor in a bedroom lab under fascist persecution.

Italy·Medicine · BiologyNobel

Alan Turing

1912 – 1954

Defined what a computer is, then was destroyed by the country he saved.

United Kingdom·Mathematics · Computing · BiologyFull profile

Alan Hodgkin & Andrew Huxley

1914 – 1998

Explained the nerve impulse in mathematical terms.

United Kingdom·Medicine · BiologyNobel

Francis Crick

1916 – 2004

Co-described the double helix and the central dogma of molecular biology.

United Kingdom·BiologyNobel

Maurice Wilkins

1916 – 2004

Shared the DNA structure Nobel.

New Zealand·Biology · PhysicsNobel

Rosalind Franklin

1920 – 1958

Photographed the shape of the molecule that makes us.

United Kingdom·Chemistry · BiologyFull profile

Marie Tharp

1920 – 2006

Mapped the ocean floor and proved continental drift.

United States·Biology · Astronomy

Ada Yonath

b. 1939

Mapped the ribosome, the cell's protein factory and antibiotic target.

Israel·Chemistry · BiologyNobel

Wangari Maathai

1940 – 2011

Green Belt Movement founder; 51 million trees and a democracy campaign.

Kenya·Peace · BiologyNobel

Elizabeth Blackburn

b. 1948

Discovered telomerase, central to ageing and cancer research.

Australia·Medicine · BiologyNobel

Katalin Karikó

b. 1955

Demoted, defunded, and right: her mRNA work produced the COVID vaccines.

Hungary·Medicine · Biology · ChemistryNobelFull profile

Mia Couto

b. 1955

Biologist-novelist who reinvented Portuguese in Mozambican terms.

Mozambique·Literature · Biology

Shinya Yamanaka

b. 1962

Reprogrammed adult cells into stem cells, remaking regenerative medicine.

Japan·Medicine · BiologyNobel

Jennifer Doudna

b. 1964

CRISPR gene editing, now in approved sickle-cell therapy.

United States·Chemistry · BiologyNobel