The new revolution in developmental biology: Expansion and reconciliation
30 April 2003
Prof. Scott Gilbert, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA USA
During the past decade, three new areas of developmental biology have emerged – evolutionary developmental biology, ecological developmental biology, and medical developmental biology. The broadening of our discipline into these areas represents a return to questions that embryology had abandoned as it became developmental biology. These three fields at the periphery of developmental biology are communicating with one another and are creating an integrated network of ideas at the boundaries of the discipline, and I will present new research that exemplifies the ideas of these fields. This new focus, I contend, is highlighting questions that have long been at the margins of developmental biology. Moreover, this "second" revolution in developmental biology is interacting with the ongoing ("first") revolution (involving differential gene expression) to shift the focus of developmental biology from differentiation to organogenesis.