[1] Wold received a Ph.D. in molecular developmental biology from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1978,[5] studying genome structure and gene regulation during embryo development.

[7] Wold helped to found the L. K. Whittier Gene Expression Center at Caltech in 1999, with Stephen Quake and Mel Simon, collaborating with the Human Genome Project.

[4] “It’s important to appreciate that discovery is often a lengthy process, requiring much persistence.”[11]Barbara Wold has published more than sixty papers in the areas of developmental biology and genetics.

[13] She has also used such techniques as microarray gene expression analysis, global protein/DNA interaction measures, mass spectrometry-based proteomics, and comparative genomics.

[13] In collaboration with others, her lab has also pioneered a modification of mass spectrometry and dual-affinity epitope tagging that enables efficient and accurate classification of multi-protein complexes.

This work is leading to increased understanding of direct transcriptional regulation and of post-transcriptional and translational mechanisms and their mediation by microRNAs.

[9] To this end, Wold seeks to use her research to contribute to the development of the international reference transcriptome and regulatory element databases.