| Citation | Distinguished for his numerous contributions to our understanding of the evolution of the eukaryotic cell, its organelles and its genome. He originated the insertional theory of intron regions, the skeletal DNA theory of the evolution of eukaryotic genome size and a mutation pressure theory of RNA editing. He was the first to argue that Archaebacteria represent a sister group to the eukaryotes and that the latter were originally amitochondrial phagotrophs. Recent work has confirmed his recognition that the chromist algae constitute a monphyletic Kingdom, distinct from the Plantae, that arose be a symbiogenetic merger of two eukaryotes, one surviving as a chloroplast in the endoplasmic reticulum of the other. He has contributed to the debate on the origin of sex through consideration of the phenomenon of diplokaryosis and through his rRNA gene-sequemcing work is producing a coherent phylogenetic classification of all the protists. |