“After what felt like hundreds of failed attempts, finally being able to see Sox2 staining under the microscope felt like a huge relief!”

First author Elena Popa and Abigail Tucker, Professor of Development and Evolution at King's College London, talk about their research into tooth development in the mouse and other organisms.

Matt Porteus (right) and Robin Lovell-Badge (left) clarify some statements made by He Jiankui. Courtesy of Vivian Tam (School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Hong Kong)

Robin Lovell-Badge gives his perspective on the recent report from Jiankui He of the world's first genome edited babies and discusses if and how clinical applications of germline genome editing in humans may be justifiable.

In the latest Spotlight for our Advocacy series, Scott Boden and Lars Østergaard argue that technological advances in sequencing, genome editing and advanced data processing should allow developmental biologists to improve crop performance as crop yields come under pressure to meet the growing human population's needs.

Demonstrating some of these principles in a new Research Article, Laura Dixon and team analyse the flowering and growth responses of a range of wheat cultivars to warmer growth temperatures.

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A new Instagram account for Development 

Our new Instagram account promotes the beauty of developmental biology through the work of our authors. Do join us there!

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Workshop - New frontiers in the brain: unexpected roles of the choroid plexus-cerebrospinal fluid system in health and disease

We are pleased to announce a Company of Biologist's Workshop, organised by Fiona Doetsch and Maria Lehtinen, bringing together scientists working on all aspects of choroid plexus and cerebrospinal fluid biology. The Workshop will be held in July 2019 at Wiston House, UK. Ten funded early-career places are available – apply here before 31 March 2019.

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PreLights – A direct and widespread role for the nuclear receptor EcR in mediating the response to ecdysone in Drosophila

Extensive and dynamic genome binding by a steroid hormone receptor highlights the interconnection between systemic and local cues for organ development, shows a preprint written by Christopher Uyehara and Daniel McKay and highlighted by Natalie Dye.

Catch up with other recent preLights selected for the developmental biology community.

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Articles of interest in our sister journals