Mark L. Wheelis is an American

microbiologist A microbiologist (from Greek ) is a scientist who studies microscopic life forms and processes. This includes study of the growth, interactions and characteristics of microscopic organisms such as bacteria, algae, fungi, and some types of par ...

. Wheelis is currently a professor in the College of Biological Sciences,

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

Carl Woese Carl Richard Woese ( ; July 15, 1928 – December 30, 2012) was an American microbiologist and biophysicist. Woese is famous for defining the Archaea (a new domain of life) in 1977 through a pioneering phylogenetic taxonomy of 16S ribosomal ...

and

Otto Kandler Otto Kandler (23 October 1920 in Deggendorf – 29 August 2017 in Munich, Bavaria) was a Germans, German botanist and microbiologist. Until his retirement in 1986 he was professor of botany at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. His mo ...

with Wheelis wrote the important

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, Textile, rags, poaceae, grasses, Feces#Other uses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water. Once the water is dra ...

'' Towards a natural system of organisms: proposal for the domains Archaea, Bacteria, and Eucarya'' that proposed a change from the

Two-empire system The two-empire system (two-superkingdom system) was the top-level biological classification system in general use from the early 20th century until the establishment of the three-domain system (which itself is currently being challenged by the t ...

Prokaryotes A prokaryote (; less commonly spelled procaryote) is a single-celled organism whose cell lacks a nucleus and other membrane-bound organelles. The word ''prokaryote'' comes from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'before', and (), meaning 'nut' ...

and

Eukaryotes The eukaryotes ( ) constitute the domain of Eukaryota or Eukarya, organisms whose cells have a membrane-bound nucleus. All animals, plants, fungi, seaweeds, and many unicellular organisms are eukaryotes. They constitute a major group of ...

to the

Three-domain system The three-domain system is a taxonomic classification system that groups all cellular life into three domains, namely Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya, introduced by Carl Woese, Otto Kandler and Mark Wheelis in 1990. The key difference from ea ...

of the domains Eukaryota,

Bacteria Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of Prokaryote, prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micr ...

and

Archaea Archaea ( ) is a Domain (biology), domain of organisms. Traditionally, Archaea only included its Prokaryote, prokaryotic members, but this has since been found to be paraphyletic, as eukaryotes are known to have evolved from archaea. Even thou ...

. Wheelis's research interests include the history of

biological warfare Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of biological toxins or Pathogen, infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, insects, and Fungus, fungi with the intent to kill, harm or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an ...

. He co-authored (with Larry Gonick) ''The Cartoon Guide to Genetics'' (1983). Wheelis provided the scientific knowledge and text, while Gonick contributed the illustrations and humor.Larry Gonick & Mark Wheelis, ''The Cartoon Guide to Genetics'', Longman Higher Education, 1983, 216 pp. .

Works

*Larry Gonick & Mark Wheelis, ''The Cartoon Guide to Genetics'', Longman Higher Education, 1983, 216 pp. *"Biological Warfare before 1914", In: Geissler E, Moon JEvC, editors. ''Biological and toxin weapons: research, development and use from the Middle Ages to 1945''. London: Oxford University Press; 1999. pp 8–34.

References

External links

* Living people American microbiologists Year of birth missing (living people) {{microbiology-stub