Heng first received his PhD from the University of Toronto Hospital for Sick Children in 1994, mentored by Lap-Chee Tsui.
His second book, Genome Chaos: Rethinking Genetics, Evolution, and Molecular Medicine, published in 2019, was a PROSE Awards finalist in 2020.
Importantly, this model implies that the stepwise accumulation of microevolution over time does not equate to macroevolution.
This phenomenon was occasionally observed in cytogenetic studies, and it was largely ignored until the establishment of a link between genome chaos and the punctuated phase of cancer evolution.
[13] [14] [15] Fuzzy inheritance is another term coined by Heng describing the heterogeneity and unpredictable relationship between genotype and phenotype.
From this “fuzzy” range of potential phenotypes, the respective environment can then allow the best-suited status to be “chosen”.
Heng proposes the main function of sexual reproduction as the preservation of the identity of a given genome rather than the promotion of genetic diversity as is commonly thought.
This system, now known as Fiber-FISH, has been extensively used for gene cloning, physical mapping, DNA replication, copy number variation (CNV), and genome structure studies.