Jacqueline K. Barton
Professor and Chair, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology

Born May 7, 1952 in New York, New York.

Dr. Jacqueline K. Barton is the Arthur and Marian Hanisch Memorial Professor of Chemistry and Chair of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She also oversees The Barton Research Group at Caltech.

Dr. Barton’s work focuses on the chemical and physical properties of DNA and the biological implications of those properties. Her research has developed DNA-based electrochemical sensors and probes that provide the foundation for the design and development of innovative diagnostic tools and therapeutics.

The White House named Dr. Barton one of seven recipients of the 2011 National Medal of Science, the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on scientists.

Dr. Barton’s list of honors is very extensive and includes the National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award (1985), which recognizes the talent, creativity, and influence of a singular young researcher; Phi Lambda Upsilon’s National Fresenius Award (1986), presented annually to an outstanding young scientist who has attained national recognition in research, teaching, and/or administration; the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Science and Technology (1988), presented annually to recognize important members of the science and engineering communities in New York City; the Havinga Medal (1995), awarded biennially by the University of Leiden (the Netherlands) to an outstanding chemist; and the Paul Karrer Gold Medal (1996), given to an outstanding researcher in the field of chemistry in conjunction with an invitation to present a scientific lecture at the University of Zurich.

Dr. Barton is the third woman to receive the Weizmann Women & Science Award (1998) from the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science. It is a biennial award established to honor an outstanding woman scientist in the United States who has made significant contributions to the scientific community. The objective of the award, which includes a $25,000 research grant, is to advance women in science and to provide strong role models to motivate and encourage the next generation of young women scientists.

The American Chemical Society has presented Dr. Barton with ten awards, each affording her an opportunity to present a paper in her area of expertise. Most recently, she received the Linus Pauling Medal (2007), recognizing outstanding accomplishments in chemistry in the spirit of and in honor of Linus Pauling, a two-time Nobel Prize winner (Chemistry and Peace).

An Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow (1984), a Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar (1986), and a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1991), Dr. Barton was also given a Presidential Young Investigator Award by the National Science Foundation.

She received the Barnard College University Medal (1990) and the University Medal for Excellence from Columbia University (1992) along with nine honorary doctorates of science, as follows: Knox College (1991), Williams College (1992), New Jersey Institute of Technology (1993), Kenyon College (1994), Lawrence University (1994), Skidmore College (1997), Hamilton College (2005), Yale University (2005), and Columbia University (2010).

Dr. Barton has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1991), the American Philosophical Society (2000), and the National Academy of Sciences (2002).

She has served on the board of Dow Chemical Company since 1993. She also served on the boards of Gilead Sciences Inc. (1989–2008) and GeneOhm Sciences Inc. (2001–2005), a biotechnology company co-founded by Dr. Barton. Based upon her industrial board service, she was named an Outstanding Director (2006) by Outstanding Directors Exchange.

Clearly one of the most highly recognized and honored scientists in her field, Dr. Barton is now proud to watch her own postdoctoral students receive similar awards and recognitions.

Elizabeth Ghaffari: Can you give me some background about why you became interested in science, in the early years?

Dr. Jacqueline Barton: There really was no science in my family whatsoever. My father was a lawyer and a judge. When I was a kid, I just loved math. I went to Riverdale Country School for Girls, an all-girls prep school in Riverdale, New York. The girls’ school was down by the river, while up on the hill was the boys’ school, Riverdale Country School for Boys.

I took a lot of math and loved it—and did really well in it. My high school teacher, Mrs. Rosenberg, suggested to the headmistress that I take calculus, which required that I attend class at the boys’ school. There was a little red station wagon that would take me from the girls’ school to the boys’ school for my calculus class. It was a big deal—my parents had to come in and approve it.

Anyway, I liked math and was always doing math problems for fun. When I went to college, I saw that chemistry was an opportunity to do mathematics and apply it in the real-world setting. And I loved it.

I went to Barnard College, which is an all-women’s college. Barnard is a part of Columbia University, this wonderful research university right across the street. I had the advantages of a small college setting in the context of a major research university community. I had my first chemistry courses just with women there. And it was fantastic. I didn’t think there was anything funny about a woman doing science. That’s where I fell in love with doing science. I graduated in 1974 [summa cum laude].

Barnard is still an all-women’s college.¹

Ghaffari: So, next you went across the street for your doctorate at Columbia?

Barton: I was a New Yorker, born and bred, so I didn’t venture very far. I first went to graduate school at Columbia, studying metals and DNA, the beginnings of the work I do now. At first, I wasn’t sure I wanted to have a high-powered research professorship. I thought maybe I wanted to go into industry. I received my doctorate in inorganic chemistry [1978] from Columbia, working in the laboratory of Steven J. Lippard.

__________

Ghaffari: You studied with both Stephen J. Lippard, a specialist in bioinorganic chemistry, and Robert G. Shulman, an authority on molecular biophysics and biochemistry. Did you select them or did they select you?

Barton: I selected them—that’s pretty much the way it works. Typically, you tune your research to match the interests of the professors with whom you want to carry out your research. Steve Lippard was my mentor in graduate school. That’s how I got interested in working on DNA.

After that, I was given a postdoctoral fellowship at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. Bob Shulman was head of the laboratory there until 1979. Then he moved to Yale, and I went to New Haven and spent about six months working with their instruments. At the time, I did a post-doc at Bell Labs, which was the crème de la crème of research within industry. It wasn’t pure industry, but it was close enough. Then I decided I really wanted to teach as well as do research.

I took a job as an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Hunter College, City University of New York City, from 1980 to 1982. It was while at Hunter that I realized how important it was to me to have a position in a state-of-the-art research laboratory. I started my independent research group, The Barton Research Group, while at Hunter.

Ghaffari: Was your experience with Bob Shulman also a case of you selecting him?

Barton: With Shulman, it was more that I wanted to go work in industry, but on a biologically-related problem. At that time, it was the very beginnings of magnetic resonance imaging—MRI. We were looking at the metabolism of cells and cell yeast using nuclear magnetic resonance [NMR] methods. Those were really cool, interesting things to be learning about while I worked with Bob.

In 1983, I returned to Columbia, becoming an associate professor of chemistry and biological sciences in 1985 and a full professor in 1986.

Ghaffari: Were Mrs. Rosenberg, Steve Lippard, and Bob Shulman your primary mentors?

Barton: Yes, and Bernice Segal. Bernice taught me chemistry at Barnard College. And there’s no question that Bernice was one tough, tough lady. That’s where I learned about high expectations. When you wrote a lab notebook, you’d write ten pages, but she’d write ten pages back. She was a really, really tough, outstanding teacher and mentor—so Bernice gets a lot of credit.

Ghaffari: When did you start publishing?

Barton: You start publishing in graduate school. I’ve published over three hundred articles by now. My first article was in 1977. I published with Lippard in the mid-eighties and then with Shulman for a couple of papers. Now that I have my own lab, I’m listed as the last author on much of our work. That’s the culture of chemistry. Now, I do more research, but I’m teaching my group of students all the time. I have a group of sixteen to eighteen graduate students and post-docs, and they carry out research in my lab.

Ghaffari: What brought you to Caltech?

Barton: I came to Caltech in the fall of 1989 for two reasons. The primary reason is because I fell in love with my now-husband, Peter Dervan, who was on the faculty at Caltech. And the other reason is that Caltech is the best chemistry department, arguably, in the world. They were interested in trying to woo me here. What they didn’t know is how easy a task that was.

Ghaffari: You have never co-authored with him, right?

Barton: No, we have not collaborated. That is sort of a rule we’ve developed. We’ve talked a little bit about collaborating, but we’ve decided that that was not necessary for either of us. We’re in a very different situation than most. Both of us have had students who were a couple, both with their PhDs, and we’ve seen how difficult it is for a couple to get two good positions at one university. It’s really quite a challenge. In our case, I had already become a professor and had my own independent career when Peter and I fell in love. I was married to Don Barton when I was in my last year of college at Barnard. That’s why my publishing name is Barton. We divorced when I was at Columbia. When I met Peter, we were already independent scientific entities, so collaboration didn’t seem like a good thing to do.

We’ve collaborated incredibly successfully with our daughter, Elizabeth, though. And with Peter’s own son, Andrew. Elizabeth’s at Yale—she’ll be twenty-one this fall. Andrew went to Yale, and we just went to his graduation from Harvard Medical School.

Ghaffari: Did you have any challenges raising kids in an intense academic laboratory environment?

Barton: Well, you know, I’ve got a wonderful husband. We live three minutes away from the lab. I’ve always been really good at delegating to other people those things I shouldn’t have to spend time on. I’ve had the same nanny, now housekeeper, for twenty-one years. I’ve had the same assistant in my office, Maureen, for twenty years. She’s also fabulous. I’ve got a wonderful support system, and I sort of make sure my priorities are what I want them to be. And that’s my family and my research.

Ghaffari: You’ve received an incredible number of awards. Did you initiate these, or did they kind of come to you?

Barton: Your colleagues nominate you. I’ve been pretty lucky. I’ve had wonderful colleagues, and I’ve got an outstanding research group that does great science.

Ghaffari: You’ve received nine honorary degrees. Are there any in particular that have been very satisfying to you?

Barton: Well, I received one from Yale, which was lovely. That was extra special because Yale ended up being a place that was important to my family. That was wonderful, and they’re wonderful people. Then, a year ago, I received another one from Columbia—the second recognition. Earlier I had received a medal from them. I now have a lot of degrees from Columbia. I love the university—it’s such an outstanding institution.

Ghaffari: How do you look at your corporate board roles—Dow Chemical and Gilead Sciences?

Barton: Earlier, I was on the Scientific Advisory Board of Gilead. I’ve been on the board of directors of Dow Chemical for almost twenty years. Dow is an extraordinary company. It’s important to me as a chemist to be able to contribute to that board. It’s an outstanding group of people, who all bring different perspectives to the board. I’m the only scientist—the sole chemist on the board. That provides a unique perspective.

I tend to be one who’s always pushing for innovative science and technology. I guess that’s what I bring to the company, the board, and the shareholders. Now, we’re moving whole hog in that direction, which is really terrific.

The recent webinar broadcast, “The Future We Create,” sponsored by Dow, is one example. This [2011] is the international year of chemistry, and Dow is the world leader in chemistry, so it makes sense that they would be supportive of that effort.

Ghaffari: How did you get on the Science Advisory Board at Gilead Sciences?

Barton: It was primarily because of my involvement in nucleic acid chemistry. It also turns out that Peter is the scientific founder of Gilead. I was very involved with that board until I became chair of chemistry and chemical engineering here at Caltech. I had to cut back on some of my outside commitments.

Ghaffari: How did you get that job?

Barton: There was a search committee set up by the provost of the faculty of chemistry and chemical engineering. I was gratified that my colleagues thought I’d be a good person to do this.

Ghaffari: You’ve done a lot of work with the American Chemical Society. How do you balance the academic with the business side?

Barton: The wonderful thing about chemistry is my involvement in research. Finding the next great idea about how the world works and the technology transfer—how the science actually gets transferred into things that affect our community—is very important. That’s something that really distinguishes chemistry and chemical engineering—it is so closely tied to industry in terms of pharmaceuticals, making materials, and to all sorts of practical perspectives. So it makes sense for someone who’s involved in chemical research to work with the Society and be involved in technology transfer. That’s true of many of my colleagues.

Most of my colleagues aren’t on boards. But many of my colleagues are involved in small companies, consulting for large companies, or starting companies. Those roles are something that many of us take on as both a responsibility and an opportunity.

Ghaffari: Tell me about your involvement with GeneOhm Sciences.

Barton: I founded GeneOhm Sciences as a company and was on the board. We started it in San Diego because I wanted it to be separate and distinct from my lab, although it was a spinout of technology developed originally in my lab. We take electrons and shoot them through DNA. That’s why it was called GeneOhm. We started this as a diagnostic company with funding by Domain Ventures. We sold it several years later to BD Diagnostics for $230 million.

That’s the only spinoff company that I’ve done, but I loved it. It was a great effort and opportunity. The moment was right to create the business, but our timing was lousy in terms of starting up just when the economy was tanking [in 2001].

When there was an offer to buy us out, it was the right thing to do, but it slightly broke my heart because I thought this was going to be a completely new kind of diagnostics company. I was interested in going forward and seeing if we could do an IPO or something, but the timing was right to sell.

Ghaffari: Do you see yourself doing more of that technology-transfer/entrepreneurial thing again in the future?

Barton: I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not clear about that now. It was very gratifying. And interesting. For the first time, I was involved in a small company with a lean-and-mean kind of focus. I learned a lot. It was a whole different perspective from being associated with Dow Chemical, an incredibly large, global company. But, now that I’m doing this chair work, that’s taking up a lot of my extra time.

Ghaffari: Do you see yourself adding more boards to your roster?

Barton: No. I’ve been pretty clear about not doing more than one board at this stage of my life. A board is a very large commitment of time. Importantly, I still love to do research. My group is doing some really neat science, so I have to save some time for that.

Ghaffari: The Barton Research Group is impressive in that consistently it’s had such a high number of women. How do you account for the fact that something like fourteen out of twenty-three of your current students are young women?

Barton: The one thing that I find most gratifying about my career—more than the awards, more even than some of the things we’ve discovered—is the fact that twenty-five women whom I have trained are now, themselves, university or college professors.

Ghaffari: Why do you think that’s the case? What are you doing right?

Barton: Well, I do have my own theories about this, although it’s completely anecdotal. I’m not a sociologist, I’m a woman scientist. People always ask me about women and science. I do know that I’m as tough on my women as I am on the men in my group. I have very, very high expectations for the women in my group. I know that they can do it. So, I look them in the eye and say, “You know, you can do this if that’s what you want.” Then I’m tough on them. I ask them to raise the bar, and they do it. They’re terrific.

Also, I think they see that you can have a life and also be a woman scientist. I’ve always cared about my daughter and son. If I ever had to get up and leave the lab because I had to do something with Elizabeth, I would do it. I’d say to them, “Everybody, sorry. I’ll be back.” So they all knew that, in some respects, you can do both. I think that’s a good thing for them all to see.

Ghaffari: Do you treat the women differently from the way you treat the men?

Barton: I treat everybody differently. I treat them all as people. I don’t treat them differently because they are men or women. But I can generalize that the women often come in with less confidence. I try to push them and give them that confidence.

I tell everyone a story that describes how I think about all this. When you’re in graduate school, life is tough. Going through graduate school takes about five years. Along about your third year, everyone starts to hit the wall. Life is tough. Experiments aren’t working. You’re not getting the data you need to write the papers you want. It’s tough—plain and simple. I wonder if, when a young woman scientist starts hitting that wall, she calls her mom or maybe her dad. They tell her, “You know, sweetheart, it’s okay. You don’t have to do this. It’s all right.” Or perhaps she talks to her mentor in her research group, and the mentor says, “Why are you killing yourself over this?” So, maybe she doesn’t stick with it.

But nobody ever says that to a guy. Not mom or dad. They will almost always say to the male scientist, “You get in there and get the job done.” Because it’s socially unacceptable for a guy to fail, whereas for a woman—“It’s okay, sweetheart. You can do something else.”

That’s my own personal view of it all. So, when the young women scientists come to me and say, “You know, I don’t know if I can do it,” I say, “Damn it, yes, you can! Get back in there. You can do it!”

I raise the activation barrier as high for the women in my group as for the guys. And that’s sort of my view of the world. I think one of the people with whom I trained, Steve Lippard, also is known for having trained a lot of outstanding women. I guess including me. That’s just the way he was. Some of my colleagues are that way as well, and they’ve been very successful in training women. In the end, it’s a matter of high expectations and having confidence in people. Then people meet those expectations.

Ghaffari: You’ve mentioned your colleagues a number of times. Do you think they treat you differently from other women professors in the field?

Barton: I think I’ve been very lucky. They’ve all treated me well and with respect. When I first moved to Caltech, after I married Peter, there were some concerns because Peter was so well established at Caltech. I did have concerns about, “Are they going to treat me like Peter’s wife, instead of me?”

But that’s long passed. Part of the reason it was so gratifying that they made me chair is that there has never been a woman chair in our division ever. That made me feel very good.

Sometimes my students will have concerns like that. I always tell them, “Look, nobody’s interested. We’re all busy. Don’t walk around with a chip on your shoulder. Nobody cares. Just treat people with respect and expect them to treat you with respect. Don’t worry about whether you’re a woman or you’re six-feet-eleven-inches tall. You’re you, and they are who they are. That’s what’s important.”

Ghaffari: How would you describe your personal decision-making style?

Barton: I go with my gut. It’s the same way I do research. I go with my gut, but you’ve got to make sure you do all the homework and that you’ve put the right controls into place. It’s strategy. Do I want to go in this direction? Do I want to waste my time? Do I understand the risks and rewards? I’m always interested in learning new things about the world, so that’s what directs me. That’s what gets me excited.

Ghaffari: What would you say is your biggest, most satisfying personal achievement?

Barton: My daughter—if you saw her, you’d know that she’s the most wonderful thing in the whole wide world. Having a child and watching her grow up is incredible. It’s not that she’s my achievement from an intellectual standpoint. It’s that my husband and I had this wonderful kid, and together we have this amazing family that’s absolutely important to both of us.

The other side is the women and men that I have trained in my laboratory—my scientific children. That’s the flip side.

Ghaffari: Is there anything you would say to advise young women about their interest in science or math?

Barton: Do what you love. Follow your passion. And, if you love doing science, you can do it. There’s no reason why you can’t. So, do what you love, because whatever you love doing, you’ll be good at it.