Jeremy Pickett-Heaps

Jeremy David Pickett-Heaps has been Professor, School of Botany, University of Melbourne since 1988. He is distinguished for his many discoveries in the field of plant cell biology. 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 organising centre, thus founding a major field of research. His wide-ranging ultrastructural work led him to a new and now accepted view of evolutionary relationships in the algae and the origin of higher plants.