An interview with Scott Fraser

Scott Fraser is a Provost Professor, and the Director of Science Initiatives, at the University of Southern California, USA. Scott has had a long-standing interest in applying the tools of chemistry, engineering and physics to problems in biology and medicine. Amongst other things, Scott is best known for his contributions to developing microscopes and tools to image developing embryos. Earlier this year, Scott was awarded the SDB's 2021 Edwin G. Conklin Medal, which aims to recognize ‘a developmental biologist who has made and is continuing to make extraordinary research contributions to the field, and is an excellent mentor who has helped train the next generation of outstanding scientists’. We caught up with Scott to find out more about his interdisciplinary research and his approach to mentoring.

Experiences with the marsupial frogs: Reminiscences of a developmental biologist

This article provides a brief account of the career of Eugenia M. del Pino. Casual events and serendipity played important roles in modeling her career as developmental biologist. In collaboration with colleagues and students, she analyzed the biology and development of the marsupial frog Gastrotheca riobambae (family: Hemiphractidae) in comparison with Xenopus laevis and tropical frogs. The emphasis was placed on oogenesis and the early stages of development. Topics include the mono- and multi-nucleated modes of oogenesis. She described two modes of gastrulation in frogs, gastrulation modes one and two according to the timing of notochord elongation. She was able to establish a pioneer laboratory for the comparative analysis of frog development in Ibero America at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, in Quito. Her contributions to society include her influence in the establishment of the National Academy of Sciences of Ecuador, and efforts toward the conservation of the Galápagos Archipelago. She is part of a pioneer group of professors that placed Biology as an academic discipline in Ecuador. The experiences of her career reveal that we all face difficulties in our jobs. However, nothing is impossible when we follow a passion. Her work reveals that the key to success is to turn obstacles into opportunities.

A tale of turns and cycles guiding to neural crest migration. An Interview with Prof. Roberto Mayor

Roberto Mayor is a prominent Chilean developmental biologist working in the UK and an advocate of the developmental biology discipline in Latin America. Roberto started as a preimplantation mouse developmental biologist during his undergraduate and graduate studies in Chile. Yet, he now uses Xenopus and zebrafish to elucidate the mechanisms that drive the directed collective locomotion of neural crest cells. What life events moulded the research career of Roberto across the years? This article addresses this question and provides a personal perspective on his scientific achievements. The story of Roberto is a mix of turns and cycles that ultimately guided him to the migrating neural crest. Turns that made him shift between model organisms and scientific topics.Cycles that drove him back and forth between Chile and the UK and which have connected his early studies as an undergraduate student with the most recent work of his lab. A big lesson that we can learn from the life of Roberto is that no matter how much you plan your life always serendipity plays a significant role. But you have to be alert and brave to take the opportunities that life offers you.

Eddy De Robertis - Lessons from the Organizer - An Interview with Prof. Edward M. (Eddy) De Robertis

In this interview, we talk with developmental biologist Eddy De Robertis about his wider scientific career and the history of developmental biology in South America. We discuss the early days of the homebox, the discovery of the mechanism of Spemann organizer function in Xenopus embryos, and related Evo-Devo. De Robertis reflects on trends of how conducting biological research has changed over the years and he provides advice for young scientists.

Suzanne Eaton (1959–2019): A pioneer in quantitative tissue morphogenesis

Knust and Simons commemorate the life of the eminent developmental biologist, Suzanne Eaton.

Chaperones, Canalization, and Evolution of Animal Forms

Over half a century ago, British developmental biologist Conrad Hal Waddington proposed the idea of canalization, that is, homeostasis in development. Since the breakthrough that was made by Rutherford and Lindquist (1998), who proposed a role of Hsp90 in developmental buffering, chaperones have gained much attention in the study of canalization. However, recent studies have revealed that a number of other molecules are also potentially involved in canalization. Here, I introduce the emerging role of DnaJ chaperones in canalization. I also discuss how the expression levels of such buffering molecules can be altered, thereby altering organismal development. Since developmental robustness is maternally inherited in various organisms, I propose that dynamic bet hedging, an increase in within-clutch variation in offspring phenotypes that is caused by unpredictable environmental challenges to the mothers, plays a key role in altering the expression levels of buffering molecules. Investigating dynamic bet hedging at the molecular level and how it impacts upon morphological phenotypes will help our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of canalization and evolutionary processes.