| Citation | J.D. Pickett-Heaps is distinguished for his many discoveries in the field of cell biology. He was first to demonstrate the passage of wall material from the Golgi apparatus to the cell wall. He discovered the preprophase band of microtubules and pointed out its significance as a predictor of the site of division in higher plant cells. He originated the seminal concept of the microtubule organizing centre, thus founding a major field of research. His wide-ranging ultrastructural work led him to a novel and now accepted view of evolutionary relationships in the algae and the origin of higher plants. He has made many important contributions to knowledge of microtubule formation, dynamics and interactions with chromosomes in the mitotic spindle during cell division, from which new hypotheses on the mechanism of mitosis have been generated. His work has been conducted in the UK, USA and Australia. He is professor of Botany in the School of Botany, University of Melbourne. |