Protists are a diverse and poorly understood aggregation of microbes, often considered to include fungi, certain algae, protozoans, and other unicellular groups. Dr. John Corliss has embarked on a long-term effort to coordinate the nomenclature and taxonomy of these disparate groups, heading eventually to a clearer understanding of their evolutionary relationships and histories. This inter-disciplinary effort will make considerable progress at the Eight International Congress of Protozoology, to be held in Tsukuba, Japan in July, 1989. Dr. Corliss has organized two symposia at the Congress that will bring together investigators from different quarters of protistology. These symposia will focus on new technologies that provide evolutionary data, and on the need for an interdisciplinary approach to the study of protistans. Dr. Corliss' efforts to create an integrated approach to protistology have broad implications. Protistans are central to questions regarding the evolution of multicellular groups, and they are biologically and ecologically important in their own rights. The international collaboration and cooperation that will result from this meeting will affect decades of future research on an array of microbial groups, leading eventually to a clearer view of some of the world's earliest life forms.
