George Edward Fox (born December 17, 1945) is an astrobiologist, a Professor Emeritus and researcher at the University of Houston. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the International Astrobiology Society. Fox received his B.S. degree in 1967, and completed his Ph.D. degree in 1974; both in chemical engineering at Syracuse University.
From the Fall of 1973 until 1977, Fox was a research associate with Carl R. Woese at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Their collaboration initially focused on 5S ribosomal RNA where they established the use of a comparative sequence approach to predict RNA secondary structure. Next, utilizing 16S ribosomal RNA finger printing technology developed in the Woese laboratory in large part by Mitchell Sogin, Fox and Woese discovered the third form of life now known as the Archaea.
