Leslie Barnett

Who is Leslie Barnett?

Leslie Barnett was a British biologist who worked with Francis Crick, Sydney Brenner, and Richard J. Watts-Tobin to genetically demonstrate the triplet nature of the code of protein translation through the Crick, Brenner, Barnett, Watts-Tobin et al. experiment of 1961, which discovered frameshift mutations; this insight provided early elucidation of the nature of the genetic code.

In her professional life, Barnett was a microbiologist who joined the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, where she worked as an assistant mainly with Crick and later Brenner, with whom she remained for many years until he left and she retired. During this long period Leslie Barnett was involved in a number of the important advances made in molecular biology and genetics; she witnessed the many technological and scientific advances made during the last century, some very important ones which she herself had contributed to.