Discoveries In Developmental Biology Research Articles

The next frontier in cardiovascular developmental biology—an integrated approach to adult disease?

Collaboration between clinicians and basic scientists is vital for effective bench-to-bedside research translations, but the interdependent nature of the two professions is currently underemphasized. Cardiovascular developmental biology in particular has important implications for our understanding of adult disease processes. Here Roger Markwald and Jonathan Butcher discuss key discoveries in developmental biology that have the potential to impact the diagnosis and treatment of adult cardiac disease, and appeal to clinicians and basic scientists alike to improve dialogue and learn from each other.

Biología e innatismo: Algunos comentarios críticos

En el presente artículo argumento que algunos de los descubrimientos empíricos relativamente recientes en la biología del desarrollo nos llevan a abandonar ciertos conceptos de lo innato, en particular, aquellos que llamaremos 'internistas'. También examino la adecuación de tres caracterizaciones de lo innato propuestas recientemente que toman en cuenta los descubrimientos empíricos antes mencionados y pretenden recoger un núcleo importante de las connotaciones y afirmaciones asociadas a lo innato en algunas disciplinas empíricas. Además, argumento que dos de estas caracterizaciones son inadecuadas por razones diversas, y que es más plausible considerar la tercera como una explicación del concepto de un rasgo fenotípico heredado.

Sven Otto Hörstadius. 18 February 1898 — 16 June 1996

During the past few decades, developmental biology has become one of the most exciting areas of science. This is largely a result of the rapidly growing knowledge of molecular biology, partly resulting from the achievements of earlier generations of embryologists. One of the men of special importance among the embryologists of the twentieth century was Sven Hörstadius. Most of the content in today's biology textbooks describes results from the post – Watson–Crick era. However, few texts exclude figures and facts from Sven Hörstadius's dissertation of exactly seventy years ago. His experiments on sea urchin larvae shed light on a couple of the most central findings in developmental biology, namely that the uneven distribution of the egg–cell contents gives rise to early embryo cells with shifting qualities, and that communication between these cells has an essential role in the differentiation process. In the same way, his achievements on the neural crest and its impact on head development in vertebrates have been of lasting importance.