Minifocus – Advocating developmental biology

Development is excited to launch a series of articles that argue for the historical impact, continuing importance and tremendous promise of developmental biology. An editorial co-written with the BSDB’s Communications Officer Andreas Prokop introduces the series, and also provides advice for how researchers can better advocate their field.

The articles in the series will answer two questions: firstly, ‘What has developmental biology ever done for us?’ In their Primer, Katrin E. Wiese, Roel Nusse and Renée van Amerongen explore how research in multiple model organisms helped illuminate the complexity of the Wnt signalling pathway and set the stage for therapeutic interventions.

Addressing the second question – ‘What are the big open questions in the field?’ – Miki Ebisuya and James Briscoe explore what time means in development, focusing on how developmental systems control the tempo, order and sequence of events both within and between species.

Together, the articles will provide a collection of case studies looking backwards to the field's achievements and forwards to its potential, and a resource for students, educators, advocates and researchers alike.

The people behind the papers – Martina Nagel & Rudolf Winklbauer

A new Research Article investigates the signals that regulate collective migration in Xenopus leading edge mesendoderm cells to address the question of how contact inhibition is overcome when cells migrate collectively as a sheet. The Node caught up with the paper’s two authors, Martina Nagel and Rudolf Winklbauer, to find out more about the story.

BSDB autumn meeting – Embryonic-extraembryonic interactions

The BSDB’s Autumn Meeting, to be held in Oxford this September, is the third in a series of international workshops on the extraembryonic-embryonic interface, bringing together researchers that address this topic through a wide array of approaches in diverse research organisms. The early-bird registration deadline is 16 July 2018, with travel grants available. Find out more here.

Call for papers – Development at the single cell level

Development is pleased to welcome submissions for an upcoming special issue on ‘Development at the single cell level’, guest-edited by Allon Klein and Barbara Treutlein. This special issue aims to showcase the best research in stem cell and developmental biology, building on the rapidly evolving tools of single cell analysis. Submission deadline: 31 October 2018.

preLights – Hox code identities instruct limb field positioning

Positioning of the limb field was long suspected to be dependent on Hox activity. Wouter Masselink highlights a preprint from Jerome Gros and colleagues, showing for the first time that in avian species limb field positioning is dependent on Hox collinear activation during early gastrulation.

Articles of interest in our sister journals

Septin-dependent remodeling of cortical microtubule drives cell reshaping during epithelial wound healing
Asako Shindo, Anastasia Audrey, Maki Takagishi, Masahide Takahashi, John B. Wallingford, Makoto Kinoshita. J. Cell Sci. 2018 131: jcs212647.

Increased FGF8 signaling promotes chondrogenic rather than osteogenic development in the embryonic skull
Linnea Schmidt, Aftab Taiyab, Vida Senkus Melvin, Kenneth L. Jones, Trevor Williams. Dis. Model. Mech. 2018 11: dmm031526