George E. Fox

{{short description|American astrobiologist}}

{{other people|George Fox}}

{{Infobox scientist|name = George E. Fox|image = George E. Fox at the Kluge Center.jpg|image_size =|alt =|caption = Fox at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress in 2016|birth_date = {{birth date and age|1945|12|17}}|birth_place = United States|death_date =|death_place =|nationality = American|fields = Biology|workplaces = University of Houston|alma_mater = Syracuse University|doctoral_advisor =|academic_advisors =|doctoral_students =|notable_students =|known_for =|author_abbrev_bot =|author_abbrev_zoo =|influences =|influenced =|awards =|religion =|signature = |signature_alt =|footnotes =

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George Edward Fox (born December 17, 1945) is an astrobiologist, a Professor Emeritus and researcher at the University of Houston. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the International Astrobiology Society. Fox received his B.S. degree in 1967, and completed his Ph.D. degree in 1974; both in chemical engineering at Syracuse University.

From the Fall of 1973 until 1977, Fox was a research associate with Carl R. Woese at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Their collaboration initially focused on 5S ribosomal RNA where they established the use of a comparative sequence approach to predict RNA secondary structure.{{cite journal|vauthors = Fox GE, Woese CR|title = 5S rRNA Secondary Structure|journal = Nature|volume = 256|pages = 505–507|date = August 1975|issue = 5517|pmid = 808733|doi = 10.1038/256505a0|bibcode = 1975Natur.256..505F|s2cid = 4288247}} Next, utilizing 16S ribosomal RNA finger printing technology developed in the Woese laboratory in large part by Mitchell Sogin, Fox and Woese discovered the third form of life now known as the Archaea.{{cite journal|vauthors = Woese CR, Fox GE|title = Phylogenetic structure of the prokaryotic domain: the primary kingdoms|journal = Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America|volume = 74|issue = 11|pages = 5088–5090|date = November 1977|pmid = 2112744|pmc=432104|doi = 10.1073/pnas.74.11.5088|bibcode = 1977PNAS...74.5088W|doi-access = free}}

It has been said that their 1977 paper “may be the most important paper ever in microbiology”.{{Cite news|url=https://phylogenomics.me/2010/04/06/most-important-paper-ever-in-microbiology-woese-fox-1977-discovery-of-archaea/|title=Most important paper ever in microbiology? Woese & Fox, 1977, discovery of archaea|newspaper=Jonathan Eisen's Lab|date=6 April 2010}} This seminal paper is now considered to be a PNAS classic.{{Cite web|url=https://www.pnas.org/topic/classics|title = PNAS Classics | PNAS}} Fox and Woese also introduced the idea of a progenote as a primordial entity in the evolution of life.{{cite journal|vauthors = Woese CR, Fox GE|title = The concept of cellular evolution|journal = J. Mol. Evol. |volume = 10|issue = 1|pages = 1–6|date = September 1977|pmid = 903983|doi = 10.1007/BF01796132|bibcode = 1977JMolE..10....1W|s2cid = 24613906}}

In the Fall of 1977, Fox moved on to the University of Houston and as a new Assistant Professor in Biochemical & Biophysical Sciences, continued to collaborate with Woese. This resulted in the 1980 publication of the “big tree”, the first comprehensive tree of bacterial relationships.{{cite journal|vauthors = Woese CR, Magrum L, Fox GE|title = Archaebacteria|journal = J. Mol. Evol. |volume = 11|issue = 3|pages = 245–251|date = August 1978|pmid = 681075|doi = 10.1007/BF01734485|bibcode = 1978JMolE..11..245W}}{{cite journal|vauthors = Fox GE, Stackebrandt, Hespel RB, Gibson J, Maniloff J, Dyer TA, Wolfe RS, Balch WE, Tanner RS, Magrum LJ, Zablen LB, Blakemore R, Gupta R, Bonen L, Lewis BJ, Stahl DA, Luehrsen KR, Chen KN, Woese CR|title = The phylogeny of procaryotes|journal = Science|volume = 209|pages = 457–463|date = July 1980|issue = 4455|pmid = 6771870|doi=10.1126/science.6771870|bibcode = 1980Sci...209..457F}} Fox also recognized the limitations that 16S rRNA sequences could provide when identifying closely related species and addressed the question of “How Close is Close?".{{cite journal|vauthors = Fox GE, Wisotzkey J, Jurtshuk P|title = How close in close:16S rRNA sequence identity may not be sufficient to guarantee species identity|journal = Int. J. Syst. Bacteriol. |volume = 42|issue = 1|pages = 166–170|date = January 1992|pmid = 1371061|doi = 10.1099/00207713-42-1-166|doi-access = free}}

He became a full professor there in 1986. His current research centers around understanding the early evolution of life with particular interest in the origin and evolution of the ribosome.{{cite journal|vauthors = Fox GE|title = Origin and evolution of the ribosome|journal = Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol|volume = 2|issue =9:a003483|date = June 2010|pages = a003483|pmid =20534711|pmc = 2926754|doi=10.1101/cshperspect.a003483}}{{cite journal|vauthors = Nair P|title = Woese and Fox: Life, rearranged|journal = Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America|volume = 109|issue = 4|pages = 1019–1021|date = 2012|pmid = 22308527|pmc = 3268309|doi = 10.1073/pnas.1120749109|doi-access = free}} He has also assisted NASA scientists on multiple occasions in characterizing relevant microbial communities.{{cite journal|vauthors = Sielaff AC, Urbaniak C, Mohan GB, Stepanov VG, Tran Q, Wood JM, Minich J, McDonald D, Mayer T, Knight R, Karouia, Fox GE, Venkateswaran K|title = Characterization of the total and viable bacterial and fungal communities associated with the International Space Station surfaces|journal = Microbiome|volume = 7|issue = 1|date = April 2019|page = 50|doi=10.1186/s40168-019-0666-x|pmid = 30955503|s2cid = 102349152|pmc = 6452512 | doi-access=free }}