U.S. Scientist Gets Prestigious Linnean Society of London Award

[xSilverPhinx]

On May 24th 2011, James A. Lake of UCLA was honored by peers with the Darwin-Wallace Medal for fundamental discoveries in the evolution of life.

Dr. Lake, Distinguished Professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology and human genetics at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and a researcher with NASA's Astrobiology Program is one of the few scientists ever to receive the Darwin-Wallace Medal which is given for major advances in evolutionary biology. Notably, the Darwin-Wallace Medal has only been awarded 42 times since 1908; thus Lake joins a rarified group of evolutionary scientists. According to a Linnean Society spokesperson, "it is a special honor for an American to win this medal."

Although he is best known for revising animal phylogeny based on genomic analysis, Lake has made a number of other important contributions to the understanding of evolution, including the discovery of new operational genes, development of the "complexity hypothesis" to help explain how horizontal gene transfer works and identification of a new root of life revealed by molecular investigations of paralogous gene sets.

http://www.suite101.com/content/us-scientist-gets-prestigious-linnean-society-of-london-award-a372762#ixzz1NazzXKuT

[Tank]

Interesting article, thanks for the link.