John Mattick has pioneered a new view of the structure of genetic systems in the higher organisms, by elucidating the hidden role played by non-coding RNA. He showed that regulatory information scales non-linearly with function in integrated complex systems and that the vast tracts of intronic and intergenic sequences in the genomes of humans and other complex organisms, previously thought to be junk, are transcribed in a developmentally regulated manner. His insights have led to the emerging realization that the majority of the human genome specifies a sophisticated internal RNA regulatory network that directs the trajectories of differentiation and development.