Robert Haynes | |
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Born | London, Ontario, Canada | 27 August 1931
Died | 22 December 1998 | (aged 67)
Education | University of Western Ontario |
Known for | Study of DNA repair and mutagenesis |
Awards | Order of Canada, Royal Society of Canada (104th President) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Genetics, biophysics |
Institutions | York University, Toronto |
Robert Hall Haynes, OC, FRSC (27 August 1931 – 22 December 1998) was a Canadian geneticist and biophysicist. He was the Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Biology at York University. Haynes was best known for his contributions to the study of DNA repair and mutagenesis, and for helping promote the concept of terraforming through his invention of the term, ecopoiesis.
Haynes was one of the earliest geneticists to recognize the fundamental biological importance of the vulnerability of DNA to damage and therefore the central role of DNA repair processes. As he noted, “DNA is composed of rather ordinary molecular subunits, which certainly are not endowed with any peculiar kind of quantum mechanical stability. Its very chemical vulgarity makes it prey to all the chemical horrors and misfortune that might befall any such molecule in a warm aqueous medium.”[1]
Haynes early life and scientific contributions have been summarized by Kunz et al. (1993)[2] and Kunz and Hanawalt (1999).[3]
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