This is proposed to have been driven by new physical morphogenetic and patterning effects set into motion when the products of the ancient developmental toolkit genes first came to operate on the multicellular scale in the late Precambrian-early Cambrian.
Based on a detailed consideration of gene regulatory components and processes that distinguish this group from all other forms of life, including their nearest holozoan relatives, he has suggested that the topologically associating domains found in the nuclei of metazoan cells had a unique propensity to amplify and exaggerate inherent physiological and structural functionalities of unicellular ancestors.
This book on evolutionary developmental biology is a collection of papers by various researchers on generative mechanisms that were plausibly involved in the origination of disparate body forms during the Ediacaran and early Cambrian periods.
Characteristic anatomical specializations of birds, e.g., bipedality, the capacity for flight, are proposed to be secondary to the hyperplasia of thigh and breast skeletal muscles that arose in compensation for the loss of several genes in saurian ancestors.
[11][12] He has long warned of dangers associated with lax regulations of genetic engineering of microorganisms and the potential of laboratory manipulation to create new bacterial and viral pathogens.
[15] In 1997, in order to encourage public discussion of these emerging technologies, he applied for a U.S. patent on a human-nonhuman chimera, a composite organism (like the "geep") arising from a mixture of embryonic cells of two or more species.