Eric Davidson: Steps to A Gene Regulatory Network for Development
- Creators
-
Rothenberg, Ellen V.
Abstract
Eric Harris Davidson was a unique and creative intellectual force who grappled with the diversity of developmental processes used by animal embryos and wrestled them into an intelligible set of principles, then spent his life translating these process elements into molecularly definable terms through the architecture of gene regulatory networks. He took speculative risks in his theoretical writing but ran a highly organized, rigorous experimental program that yielded an unprecedentedly full characterization of a developing organism. His writings created logical order and a framework for mechanism from the complex phenomena at the heart of advanced multicellular organism development. This is a reminiscence of intellectual currents in his work as observed by the author through the last 30-35 years of Davidson's life.
Additional Information
© 2016 Elsevier. Available online 26 January 2016. Two members of the Davidson lab in the 1980's and early 1990's who have died since then were close friends and very helpful colleagues to me in those early years. They were founding-generation Davidson lab postdoc Barbara Hough-Evans and computational analyst (and Eric's football teammate) James Moore. Conversations with them during those years gave me considerable insight into research in the group and the currents of intellectual excitement at the time, and I owe them great debts for material included in this reminiscence. My own group's research program was one that benefited from some of the institutions that Eric helped to create, and the intellectual exchange that was an integral part of each of these institutions was in a way the most lasting benefit of all. Great thanks are also due to Andy Cameron for correcting my recollections in a draft of this article. I am grateful for support by an Albert Billings Ruddock Professorship of Biology at Caltech and grants to my lab from NIH.Attached Files
Accepted Version - nihms755788.pdf
Files
| Name | Size | Download all |
|---|---|---|
|
md5:67dc102d6151fdec3ab15c4eb6eee893
|
554.9 kB | Preview Download |
Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC4828313
- Eprint ID
- 64169
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.ydbio.2016.01.020
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20160202-124600941
- Albert Billings Ruddock Professorship
- NIH
- Created
-
2016-02-02Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2022-05-11Created from EPrint's last_modified field