Development symposium photos and panel discussion

Last Thursday, Development organized a one-day symposium, “Past, Present and Future”, to mark the 25th anniversary of the journal. All speakers were past or present editors of Development, and the work they presented gave a broad overview of the current status of the field.

At the end of the day, a panel discussion looked back at the advancements in developmental biology of the past 25 years, but mostly considered the future of the field. A collection of tweets summarizing the panel discussion is at the end of this post, below the photos. (And if you’re viewing this on the front page of the Node, make sure to click through to the second part of the post to see the remaining photos!)

Kenneth Chien spoke about driving heart progenitor cell fate and regeneration in vivo via chemically modified mRNA – a technique that could have direct therapeutic applications.

Peter Lawrence gave a historical overview of planar cell polarity signalling, as well as discussing his latest insights into how cells orient in a tissue (published recently in Development!).

Magdalena Götz highlighted radial glial cells’ function as stem and progenitor cells in the brain, providing insights into how particular patterns of self-renewal vs. differentiation might define brain region size.

Jim Smith showed a systems-level view on how the decision between mesoderm and neural fate in Xenopus is regulated by T-box proteins.

Thomas Lecuit spoke about the mechanics of tissue morphogenesis in Drosophila, demonstrating the central role of myosin II in both cell intercalation and apical constriction events.

Olivier Pourquié, Development‘s current Editor in Chief, shared some of his recent work on the somitogenesis clock, and also explained how he became interested in stem cells as a system to better understand this key developmental process.

In the final talk, Mike Levine presented work on shadow enhancers and paused Pol II in Drosophila, discussing how both may help to ensure robust expression of key genes in the rapidly developing embryo.

Panel discussion: Cheryll Tickle and Kate Storey

Panel discussion: Olivier Pourquié, Peter Lawrence and Mike Levine

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