Robert Haynes


Robert Hall Haynes, OC, FRSC 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 biologic 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.”
Haynes early life and scientific contributions have been summarized by Kunz et al. and Kunz and Hanawalt.

Incomplete timeline

Presidential Address

Planetary engineering