The Royal Society of Chemistry Honors CalTech’s Jaqueline Barton

Jaqueline Barton, the John G. Kirkwood and Arthur A. Noyes Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, is one of three winners and the only woman to win a 2018 Centenary Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry in the United Kingdom. From 2015 to 2018, only 8 percent of all scholars who were nominated for this award have been women.

Winners of the Centenary Prize are outstanding chemists from nations outside the United Kingdom, who are also exceptional communicators. Winners come to the United Kingdom for a lecture tour. They receive a medal and £5,000.

Professor Barton’s research is important for understanding how DNA is damaged, repaired, and replicated within the cell. She demonstrated, in the early 1990s, that DNA can act like an electrical wire to transport electrical charges over long distances, and that this mechanism can be used by the cell to locate and repair potentially harmful mutations to DNA.

Dr. Barton joined the faculty at CalTech in 1989. She currently holds the Norman Davidson Leadership Chair of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the university. Dr. Barton is a graduate of Barnard College and holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University.