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Giardia lamblia is a significant, environmentally transmitted, human pathogen and an amitochondriate protist. It is a major contributor to the enormous worldwide burden of human diarrheal diseases, yet the basic biology of this parasite is not well understood. No virulence factor has been identified. The Giardia lamblia genome contains only 12 million base pairs distributed onto five chromosomes. Its analysis promises to provide insights about the origins of nuclear genome organization, the metabolic pathways used by parasitic protists, and the cellular biology of host interaction and avoidance of host immune systems. Since the divergence of Giardia lamblia lies close to the transition between eukaryotes and prokaryotes in universal ribosomal RNA phylogenies, it is a valuable, if not unique, model for gaining basic insights into genetic innovations that led to formation of eukaryotic cells. In evolutionary terms, the divergence of this organism is at least twice as ancient as the common ancestor for yeast and man. A detailed study of its genome will provide insights into an early evolutionary stage of eukaryotic chromosome organization as well as other aspects of the prokaryotic / eukaryotic divergence.