Raymond Pearl memorial lecture, 1988: Evolution of mitochondrial DNA in human and other organisms.

Within the last ten years complete sequencing of mitochondrial DNA in human and several other species, sequencing of nuclear and mitochondrial ribosomal and transfer RNAs in many species of bacteria, fungi, plants, and animals, and population studies of restriction enzyme polymorphism in the mtDNAs of insects, mammals and sixteen species of primates produced a wide range of new data and theory in molecular evolutionary genetics. These data support the endosymbiotic origin of the eukaryotic cell, the evolution of the Genus Homo with Pan as the closest related living genus, and the origin of modern Homo sapiens by gradualistic, anagenetic, regional phyletic transformation from Homo erectus.