Chapter 1 Outline

Chapter 1: The Making of a Body and a Field: Introduction to Developmental Biology

How Are You, You?” The Questions of Developmental Biology

  • Articulating the questions of developmental biology
  • Choosing the organism to study the question: The “model system”

The cycle of life

  • An animal’s life cycle
  • Example: A frog’s life
  • A flowering plant’s life cycle
  • Example: Arabidopsis (consider the mustard seed)

Cell movements in the embryo

  • Cell types and their behaviors
  • Gastrulation: “the most important time in your life”
  • The primary germ layers and early organs

Watching development: some basic methods

  • Choosing the organism to study the question: The “model system”
  • Approaching the bench: “Find it, lose it, move it”
  • Direct observations of living embryos
  • Dye marking
  • Genetic labeling
  • Transgenic DNA chimeras

Personal Significance: Medical Embryology and Teratology

Developmental biology and evolution

  • Evolutionary embryology: The early years
  • Analogy and homology
  • The tree of life and our developmental relatedness
  • Developmental origins of animals
  • Developmental origins of land plants
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