Professor Keith Boardman is distinguished for his work on the development, structure and function of higher plant chloroplasts. His studies have led to considerable additions to knowledge of the biology and biochemistry of the development of pro-plastids to mature chloroplasts, and of the biochemistry and chemistry of the photoconversion of protochlorophyll to chlorophyll in the plant cell. More recently, his isolation from mature chloroplast of two types of particle with two distinct pigment systems has provided direct proof for two discrete photochemical processes in photosynthesis. Detailed studies of these systems have thrown much new light on the mechanism of photosynthesis.