Developmental Biology Intro

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Molecular and Cellular Principles of Animal Development

Focusing on the intro material that pretains to the developmental biology course.

Understanding Developmental Biology
There are many different approaches when studying the development of any organism. For instance, Aristotle studied development by taking the classical/anatomical approach. This is when you physically observe an organism's development at different stages. Another, more modern, appoarch is through a molcular basis. THis is the study of the genetic programs underlying the development patterns of organisms.

A  Primary Question  that arises is, "How can a complex animal emerge from a single egg?"


 * Multicellular organisms do not spring full formed. They arise by a slow process of progressive changes called development. Development of multicellular organisms begins with a zygote which mitotically divides to produce all the cells of the body. The process of development does not finish at birth, development continues throughout life!

Developmental similarities

Comparative Embryology: how the anatomy changes during the development of different organisms. Every animal pass through similar stages of development. The specific stages of development between fertilization of the egg and the hatching is embryogenesis.
 * It was seen that the early parts of development for many organisms were highly conserved.
 * Baer's Law: early stages of development are also similar across species. There msut be a conserved pattern of gene expression between model organisms