(Interview by Kathryn Senior. Originally published in Development)

Stephen Wilson is Professor of Developmental Genetics at University College, London, UK. He was recently awarded the Remedios Caro Almela Prize for Research in Developmental Neurobiology. We interviewed Steve to find out about how he started on the road to developmental biology research, how he got interested in the brain, his achievements and future challenges.

What originally set you on the road towards a career in science?

I dropped biology at school and was all set to study metallurgy at University for no good reason at all. Luckily I realized this just before starting. The fact that the course was entirely populated by male students helped my decision-making… I took a year off, worked in a school lab and realized that I loved biology – that was the start.

You have chosen to focus on the most complex organ – the brain – what prompted that choice?

I went to Steve Easter’s lab as a post-doc to work on the developing eye and retino-tectal projection. You might say it was serendipity but the first time I tried to label retinal axons, I stuck the needle through the back of the eye and into the brain. I labelled lots of neurons that were not supposed to be there. My time as a post-doc was spent trying to find out more about these very early forebrain neurons – I’m still on the same mission.

What is the most frustrating challenge that you have had in your research and how did you tackle it?

Perhaps ‘frustrating’ is not the right adjective but a challenge that taught me a lot arose during my time as a post-doc. My closest friend at the time (with whom I shared an apartment) was working on essentially the same project as me but in a competing, neighbouring lab. This was quite a challenge for us to cope with. We both learned that friendship is far more important than the transient troubles one faces in the lab – most of which resolve and fade from memory in a few months.

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From April 12 to 15, the British Societies for Cell Biology and Developmental Biology are holding a joint meeting in Warwick. The program is full of interesting talks: Always two at the same time, making it hard to choose what to listen to.

Personally, I’m excited about this event because it is the first time I get to show people the Node! We’re projecting the Node on screen at our booth, and I’ll be walking around in between the talks to show people how to use the site. I hope we get lots of feedback and enthusiastic contributors!

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In February 2010, The Company of Biologists (which publishes Development and hosts the Node) organized the first of a series of workshops. The theme of the workshop was “Neural Stem Cells in Development and Disease”, and was attended by a variety of researchers: some work on the role of neural stem cells in development, while others studied disease models. The workshop was unique in bringing together scientists from these different areas.
In a few weeks, we’ll post an interview with the organizers of this workshop, so you’ll hear more about it. For now, here’s a group shot of all the participants

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(Interview by James Briscoe. Originally published in Development)

Olivier Pourquié is the new director of the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology (IGBMC) in Strasbourg, France, and as of this month takes on another crucially important role in the developmental community — that of Development‘s new Editor in Chief. Recently, we asked James Briscoe, in his capacity as a director of the Company of Biologists, to interview Olivier and to discover more about his research career and interests and how they will shape the future content and directions of Development.

Describe your research interests in one sentence?
I am interested in embryonic patterning in vertebrates.

What projects are you working on at the moment?
We are trying to figure out how axis extension and segmentation are controlled in vertebrates. We are also carrying out large-scale studies to figure out the logic of the transcriptional programme that underlies paraxial mesoderm development.

What has been the most exciting moment in your career?
Realising that the static pictures of gene expression that we were seeing in the embryo in fact reflected the oscillatory gene expression that is associated with somite formation.

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A few weeks ago, Thomson Reuters selected the world’s hottest researchers. Their measurement of “hotness” is how often an author’s recent papers were cited by other researchers during 2009. At the top of the list is Rudolf Jaenisch of MIT, who authored 14 of those “hot papers”. The top institute on the list is the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, which has four researchers in the field of genetics and genomics represented in the top 12. Most “hot” scientists are based in the US, according to this list, but researchers from the UK, The Netherlands, China, and Japan also made the cut.

See the full list on Thompson Reuters’ website. What do you think of the ranking of researchers by citation scores as a measure of “hotness”?

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Welcome to the Node! This is a place for developmental biologists to share the latest news, discuss topics related to their field, and see what’s new.

This site is managed by the journal Development, but the content is written by a variety of contributors. That could include you! If you have anything to share with the developmental biology community and want to participate in the discussions, sign up for an account.

You can subscribe to posts by e-mail or RSS, but remember to visit the site to comment on posts. You can also follow the Node on Twitter, or read more about us on the “About” page.

Have a look around, participate, and let us know what you think – either in the comments or by e-mail.

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