Essays on Developmental Biology Part A

Paul M. Wassarman, the Series Editor of CTDB since 2007, is Professor in the Dept. Developmental and Regenerative Biology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. He received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Brandeis University where he carried out thesis research in the Graduate Dept. Biochemistry with Professor Nathan O. Kaplan. In 1967 Wassarman joined the Division of Structural Studies at the MRC, Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England as a Helen Hay Whitney Foundation Fellow with Sir John C. Kendrew. In 1972 he joined the faculty of the Dept. Biological Chemistry at Harvard Medical School and in 1986 moved to the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology where he was Chair of the Dept. Cell and Developmental Biology and Adjunct Professor in the Dept. Cell Biology, New York University School of Medicine. In 1996 he moved to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai where he was the Lillian and Henry M. Stratton Professorial Chair of the Dept. Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology. Wassarman has published more than 200 research papers and reviews, dealing primarily with mammalian oogenesis, fertilization, and early embryogenesis.

• Part of two 50th Anniversary volumes including contributions from dozens of outstanding developmental biologists from around the world1. Seeing is Believing, or How GFP Changed my Approach to ScienceMarkus Affolter2. The Notch-Mediated Proliferation CircuitryDiana M. Ho and Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas3. Defining the Path from Stem Cells to Differentiated TissuePhilip N. Benfey4. Neuregulin/ErbB Signaling in Developmental Myelin Formation and Nerve RepairCarmen Birchmeier and David L. H. Bennett5. Oocyte Meiotic Spindle Assembly and FunctionAaron F. Severson, George von Dassow, and Bruce Bowerman6. Self-Organization of Spatial Patterning in Human Embryonic Stem CellsAlessia Deglincerti, Fred Etoc, M. Zeeshan Ozair and Ali H. Brivanlou7. The Neural Crest Migrating into the 21st CenturyMarianne E. Bronner and Marcos Simões-Costa8. Tissue Differentiation: A Personal Account of Research on Myogenesis and CardiogenesisMargaret Buckingham 9. Cycling in the Cell Fate LandscapeCorey Bunce and Blanche Capel10. Securing Neuronal Cell Fate in C. ElegansChaogu Zheng and Martin Chalfie11. Cancer in Drosophila: Imaginal Discs as a Model for Epithelial Tumor FormationHéctor Herranz, Teresa Eichenlaub and Stephen M. Cohen12. Genome Duplication: The Heartbeat of Developing OrganismsMelvin L. DePamphilis13. The Chordin Morphogenetic PathwayEdward M;. De Robertis and Yuki Moriyama14. From the Eye to the Brain: Development of the Drosophila Visual SystemNathalie Nériec and Claude Desplan15. Zygotic Genome Activators, Developmental Timing, and PluripotencyDaria Onichtchouk and Wolfgang Driever16. Topological Domains, Metagenes And The Emergence Of Pleiotropic Regulations at Hox LociFabrice Darbellay and Denis Duboule17. Connectomics, The Final FrontierScott W. Emmons, Dominick P. Purpura and Albert Einstein18. Dedifferentiation, Redifferentiation, and Transdifferentiation of Striated Muscles during Regeneration and DevelopmentManfred Frasch19. Epithelial Skin Biology: Three Decades of Developmental Biology, a Hundred Questions Answered and a Thousand New Ones to AddressElaine Fuchs20. Differentiation in Stem Cell Lineages and in Life: Explorations in the Male Germ Line Stem Cell LineageMargaret T. Fuller21. How Somatic Adult Tissues Develop Organizer ActivityMatthias C. Vogg, Yvan Wenger and Brigitte Galliot22. Developmental Plasticity and Developmental Symbiosis: The Return of Eco- DevoScott F. Gilbert23. Twenty Years in Maine: Integrating Insights from Developmental Biology into Translational Medicine in a Small StateThomas Gridley 24. Cell Fate Determination by Transcription FactorsJ. B. Gurdon25. Terminal Selectors of Neuronal IdentityOliver Hobert26. Drosophila Segment Polarity Mutants and the Rediscovery of the Hedgehog Pathway GenesPhilip W Ingham27. The Comparative Organismal Approach in Evolutionary Developmental Biology: Insights from Ascidians and CavefishWilliam R. Jeffery28. From Cloning Neural Development Genes to Functional Studies in Mice, 30  Years of AdvancementsAlexandra L. Joyner29. Tales of Tails (and Trunks): Forming the Posterior Body in Vertebrate EmbryosDavid Kimelman30. The Curious World of Gonadal Development in MammalsPeter Koopman31. Essay on Developmental Biology For the 50th Anniversary of Current Topics in Developmental BiologyKopan, R.32. A Path to PatternThomas B. Kornberg33. Gene-Environment Interactions and the Etiology of Birth DefectsRobert S. Krauss and Mingi Hong34. Hox Genes and the Hindbrain: A Study in SegmentsRobb Krumlauf35. C. Elegans Embryonic MorphogenesisThanh Vuong-Brender, Xinyi Yang and Michel Labouesse36. The Last 50 years: Mismeasurement and Mismanagement are Impeding Scientific ResearchPeter A Lawrence37. Mechanochemical Interplay Drives Polarization in Cellular and Developmental  SystemsQiyan Mao and Thomas Lecuit38. The Pluripotency of Neural Crest Cells and their Role in Brain DevelopmentNicole M. Le Douarin and Elisabeth Dupin39. Germ Plasm Biogenesis –an Oskar-Centric Perspective Ruth Lehmann40. Emerging Modeling Concepts and Solutions in Stem Cell ResearchDmitri Papatsenko and Ihor R. Lemischka

Praise for the Series: "Outstanding both in variety and in the quality of its contributions." --Nature