His studies of chromosome structure revealed the importance of non-histone proteins, and along with evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis, he was one of the first to recognize that blue-green algae were a special type of bacteria.
Inspired by the works of the French entomologist Jean Henri Fabre, he observed the habits of ants, wasps and bees.
He retired at age 75, but remained Emeritus Investigator of the University of Wisconsin’s Integrated Microscopy Resource (IMR) and continued to work on high-resolution images of the nuclear pore complex.
[3] The Laboratory of Optical and Computational Instrumentation (LOCI) in collaboration with the Center for Quantitative Cell Imaging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison hosts an annual seminar series honoring Ris, who oversaw the installation of one of the nation's first high-voltage electron microscopes in the former location of LOCI.
Hans Ris Seminar Series Featured Speakers: 2022: Wolfgang Baumeister; Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry 2019: Davi Bock; University of Vermont and Janelia Farms 2018: Tatyana Svitkina; University of Pennsylvania 2017: Erik M. Jorgensen Archived 2019-05-06 at the Wayback Machine; University of Utah 2016: David H. Hall Archived 2018-07-15 at the Wayback Machine; Albert Einstein College 2015: Kent McDonald Archived 2017-11-13 at the Wayback Machine; UC Berkeley 2014: Wah Chiu; Baylor College of Medicine 2013: Thomas Müller-Reichert; Technische Universität Dresden 2012: Mark E. Ellisman Archived 2018-07-19 at the Wayback Machine; UC San Diego