The making of an embryologist, then and now!

Excerpt

In the not-so-distant past, embryology was a discipline practiced by a cadre of 20th century biologists fascinated with the transformation of a single egg cell into a complete organism. This fascination with morphogenesis–“morphing” as we refer to it today–constituted the very foundations of embryology because transitions in form could be observed and recorded in real time for organisms whose development could be studied ex vivo. And once empowered with the ability to elicit the onset of development by timed fertilization, the traditional discipline as we knew it was off and running towards the molecular genetic era of the 1980s when it became known as developmental biology. From its descriptive roots, encouraged by the introduction of electron microscopy and time-lapse cinematography, to the decidedly experimental character that embryology assumed into the 1980s, the field was dominated by non-mammalian subjects of study like amphibians, avians, insects, and marine invertebrates–all very visible and plentiful organisms that satisfied Krogh’s principle! It was not until the mid-20th century that mammalian embryology matured as an experimental discipline and interestingly, was presaged by some 15 years by our first glimpses into the earliest stages of human development as a result of the famous “egg hunts” of Hertig and Rock. …