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It takes a villus to build a career
Your small intestine—all 20 or so feet of it—is lined with millions of finger-like projections called villi that absorb nutrients from your food. Tyler Huycke, a new Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, studies how these extensions of the mammalian gut epithelium take shape during embryonic development.
Chameleons Reveal How Life Takes Shape
Despite 300 million years of evolution between them, humans and chameleons share similarities in the genetic and developmental programs that shape their bodies. Evolutionary developmental biologist Natasha Shylo, who holds a doctorate in genetics, studies how these conserved processes have been modified over time to give rise to diverse forms of amniotes.
How Organs Take Shape, and So Does a Career: How GetHIRED! Helped Nicole Edwards Launch Her Lab
Nicole Edwards has long been driven by a curiosity about how organs develop—and what happens when those processes go awry. After earning her Ph.D. in developmental biology at Western University in Canada and completing a postdoc at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, she’s now preparing to launch her own lab at the University of Michigan Medical School in early 2026.
A Dash for the finish line, with help from GetHIRED!
Meet Soma Dash, an assistant professor in the RNA Institute at the State University of New York—Albany and alumni of the Society for Developmental Biology GetHIRED! program. Her lab studies how transcriptional disruption can lead to craniofacial birth defects. Dash started her academic journey in India, where she discovered her love of bench science.
Interview with SDB GetHIRED! Graduate Yuki Shindo
For young scientists pursuing faculty positions in academia, entering and navigating the job market can be daunting as a solo enterprise. Luckily, programs like the Society for Developmental Biology’s GetHIRED! seek to bridge the gap between postdoctoral fellows (postdocs) and the faculty positions they dream of by building community support networks and giving generous feedback on participants’ application packages.
Lessons in resilience: An interview with Erica Crespi
Erica Crespi has been told that she tends to chase shiny things. From career paths to model organisms to teaching methods to research questions, the Washington State University professor’s scientific journey has been anything but linear. But, in the face of criticism that she is a jack of all trades and a master of none, she views her adaptability as one of her greatest strengths.
Blanche Capel Awarded 2025 Edwin G. Conklin Medal
“Philosophically, the most important problems of biology are those which concern the origin of a new individual, the genesis of a living organism” -E. G. Conklin, 1896. This quote beautifully encompasses decades of research led by Blanche Capel, this year’s Society for Developmental Biology Edwin G. Conklin Medal recipient. Capel is a professor in the Cell Biology Department at Duke University, where she has spent her career making significant strides in the developmental and reproductive biology fields.
Honoring Billie J. Swalla's Legacy with a Lifetime Achievement Award
When Billie Swalla learned of her nomination for the Developmental Biology-Society for Developmental Biology Lifetime Achievement Award, she felt "humbled to be among Nobel Prize-winning colleagues," never imagining she would be counted among their ranks. But to the scientific community, and especially to her nominators, this recognition felt long overdue.
President’s Corner: Advocating for Developmental Biology — ROAR
I know I am preaching to the choir, but developmental biology is a fascinating field of research. Discoveries made in the field of developmental biology provide fundamental knowledge about how organisms form and fuel biomedical research for new therapeutic strategies for human disease. However, you may have heard your colleagues or administrators at your institution disparage our beloved field of developmental biology.
President's Corner: Challenges
I am very excited to serve as the President of the Society for Developmental Biology. My term began following the SDB Board of Directors meeting at the 20th International Congress of Developmental Biology in San Juan, Puerto Rico. As President, my primary job is to plan next year’s annual meeting that will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada but I intend to work on a variety of projects that I will describe later.
The Backstory: Padmanabhan Babu and the isolation of the e912 mutant (lin-4)
For many years there was only one lin-4 mutant allele (e912), and this single allele enabled the studies reported by Lee et al. (1993) from the Ambros lab, describing the first microRNA. The e912 mutant was first reported by Horvitz and Sulston (1980) - “lin-4(e912) was obtained by P. Babu”. Who is P. Babu?
The Backstory: An interview with Candy Lee on the discovery of microRNAs
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNAs. Rosalind (Candy) Lee has been a member of the Ambros lab since 1987. She is the co-first author of the 1993 paper describing the unusual product of the lin-4 locus in C. elegans, the first described microRNA.
Developmental Biology
Developmental Biology, the official journal of the Society for Developmental Biology, publishes original research on mechanisms of development, differentiation, and growth in animals and plants at the molecular, cellular, genetic and evolutionary levels.
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WIREs Mechanisms of Disease
WIREs Developmental Biology, previously published in association with the Society for Developmental Biology, has merged into WIREs Mechanisms of Disease. All SDB members can access WIREs Mechanisms of Disease articles for free by signing in to their SDB Membership Portal.
