Virtual Library-Developmental Biology
This Virtual Library maintained by Society for Developmental Biology.

Subject Index

Gametogenesis and Fertilization

• Melissa Pepling's Lab at Syracuse University studies mouse germ cell development and oogenesis
• The Lessman Lab at The University of Memphis focuses on oocyte maturation at both the molecular and cell physiology levels. Model systems include: the leopard frog (Rana pipiens), zebrafish (Brachydanio rerio), goldfish (Carassius auratus) and the african clawed frog (Xenopus laevis). At present we are particularly interested in large macromolecular complexes in oocytes.
• Gary Hunnicutt at the Population Council studies sperm maturation within the epididymis.
• The Gard Lab, Department of Biology, University of Utah, studies cytoskeletal organization during oogenesis and early development in Xenopus laevis.
• The Kline Lab at Kent State University, focuses on mammalian oocyte maturation, fertilization, and egg activation.
• Gary Wessel's PRIMO Site at Brown University, focuses on the molecular biology of fertilization and early development in mice, starfish, and sea urchins.
• The Epel Lab at Hopkins Marine Station works on fertilization and how developmental programs in eggs are initiated. Besides the work going on in Dave Epel's lab, there are also links to several other sea urchin development labs.
• Bill Wasserman's Lab at Loyola University Chicago works on molecular events in amphibian oocytes that prepare them for fertilization and subsequent embryonic development.
• Brad Stith's Lab, University Of Colorado-Denver, studies polyphosphoinositide(PI) turnover pathways in growth factor-induced cell division and in fertilization.
• Steve DiNardo's Lab at the University of Pennsylvania Health System studies developmental patterning in embryos and stem cell function during spermatogenesis.
• The Morris Lab studies the effects of growth factors and cytokines on development of male germ cells during spermatogenesis.
• The Erez Raz Lab, MPI for Biophysical Chemistry, Germany, studies primordial germ cell development in zebrafish.
• Juergen Buening's Lab, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. The research interests of the Juergen Buening Lab are comparative studies of insect ovaries focussing on early oogenesis, analysis of insect phylogeny and Drosophila oogenesis as a model system..
• Mary Lee Sparling's lab, Calif State Univ Northridge, investigates changes in cell membranes at fertilization and early development, involving lipids and lipid altering enzymes.
• BioMarCell, a site about reproduction , fertilization and development of sea urchins, ascidians, cnidarians, ctenophores, and chaetognaths.

Early Development

• Eric N. Olson's Laboratory, UT Southwestern Medical Center, is interested in basic regulatory mechanisms in developmental biology. They work primarily with muscle cells as a model system to investigate two major questions. (1) How do multipotential embryonic stem cells become committed to specific fates that result in activation of unique sets of cell typespecific genes? (2) How do the signal transduction pathways regulating cell proliferation interface with the mechanisms for cell differentiation?
• Monte Westerfield's laboratory in the Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Oregon studies cell fate specification and patterning using zebrafish.
• Laura Grabel's lab at Wesleyan University studies the role of Integrins in cell migration using EC cells, and the role of Hedgehog genes in early mouse development, using both ES cells and mouse embryos mutant for genes in the hedgehog signalling pathway.
• The Waschek laboratory, University of California at Los Angeles, investigates the roles and actions of neuropeptides on vertebrate nervous system development and regeneration. Molecular and genetic approaches are used in conjunction with mouse and Xenopus models.
• Bob Goldstein's Lab, University of North Carlina-Chapel Hill, focuses on the the early development in C. elegans. This site includes C. elegans movies and links to movies made by C. elegans researchers worldwide.
• Geraldine Seydoux's Lab, Johns Hopkins University, focuses on the mechanisms that establish embryonic polarity and germ cell fate in the C. elegans embryo.
• Richard Harland's Lab, U.C. Berkeley, focuses on understanding early vertebrate development at the molecular level. They study this problem in both the amphibian Xenopus, and in the mouse. Xenopus embryos are large and easily manipulated, so that the function of various macromolecules, such as RNA and protein, can be assayed by microinjection into living embryos. Functional assays in Xenopus can then be complemented by genetic knockouts in the mouse, to gain fuller understanding of the normal requirements for gene action in the developing embryo.
• Howard Lipshitz's Lab, Sick Children & Univ. Toronto, research focuses on mechanisms of cytoplasmic RNA localization and the genetic control of morphogenesis using Drosophila as a model.
• The Ettensohn Lab, Carnegie Mellon, studies early patterning and morphogenetic cell movements in sea urchin embryos.
• Sally Moody's Laboratory at George Washington University, Washington, DC, studies: the role of maternal determinant molecules in establishing the dorsal axis/central nervous system; the identification of the upstream regulatory regions of a neuron-specific beta-tubulin gene; the determination of amacrine cell fates in the retina; fate maps in Xenopus laevis.
• Claudio Stern's lab studies early development, mainly in the chick embryo. Major current interests are: gastrulation, neural induction and patterning, somite formation.
• Gary Wessel's PRIMO Site at Brown University focuses on the molecular biology of fertilization and early development in mice, starfish, and sea urchins.
• Christof Niehrs's lab at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg studies the molecular biology of early embryogenesis in Xenopus laevis. The major focus is on Spemann-organizer function and mesodermal patterning.
• Wadsworth's Wonderful Worms This is a research laboratory studying developmental neurobiology and the extracellular matrix. The nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, is used as a model animal for genetic and molecular biology studies. The site includes self-scoring quizes, worm cartoons, and animations for java enabled browsers.
• Leon Browder's Lab at the University of Calgary His lab works on the mechanisms that control protein synthesis during oogenesis and early embryonic development of Xenopus laevis
• BioMarCell, a site about reproduction , fertilization and development of sea urchins, ascidians, cnidarians, ctenophores, and chaetognaths.

Organogenesis and Morphogenesis

• Jeff Hardin's Lab at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, focuses on two major questions: how do cell sheets change shape during morphogenetic movements, and how do freely migrating cells make attachments to specific locations in the embryo? We are using two experimental systems to study these events: (1) The embryonic epidermis, or hypodermis, of the nematode, C. elegans, and (2) the archenteron of the sea urchin gastrula.
• Mark Mercola's lab, Harvard Medical School, works on embryonic heart induction and patterning, left-right asymmetry, and cardiogenesis from stem cells.
• Ramesh Shivdasani's lab, Dana-Farber Cancer Inst./Harvard Med Sch, focuses on the molecular mechanisms of gut development and on how blood platelets are created from megakaryocytes.
• Stephen Duncan's Lab, Medical College of Wisconsin, studies the molecular mechanisms underlying mammalian development.
• Sue Ann Miller's lab at Hamilton College studies potential contributions of differential cell division and cell death in early morphogenesis of chick and mouse embryos in order to place an organismal perspective on dynamics of the cell cycle.
• David Knecht's Dictyostelium Movies
• Krull Lab at the University of Missouri-Columbia studies how the precise patterns of neural circuitry are assembled that underlie functional behaviors, including locomotion, perception, and memory. Specifically, they are interested in cellular and molecular mechanisms that guide motor axons and neural crest to their targets in the periphery.
• Kathryn Tosney's Lab, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, studies: growth cone motility and guidance; axon guidance, in vivo; muscle differentiation and morphogenesis; neural crest migration; and neural patterning.
• Hogan Laboratory at the Vanderbuilt Medical Center focuses on the genetic regulation of inductive tissue interactions in mammalian development by using the mouse as the primary research model.
• The Rossant Lab, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada, studies the genetic control of many aspects of early mouse development.
• Oral Developmental Genetics site reviews the development of embryonic salivary gland development of mammals, and describes nonlinear modeling of embryonic organs based on functional genomics and bioinformatics.
• Michael Ferrari's lab at the University of Missouri Kansas City studies the cellular physiology of muscle development, with a particular focus on calcium regulation of myofibrillogenesis and somitogenesis during skeletal muscle development in Xenopus.
• Mandoli Lab at the University of Washington uses genetics, physiology, cell biology and, photobiology to understand how Acetabularia (the Mermaid's Wineglass) makes and maintains its elaborate architecture in the absence of cell division.
• The Liscum laboratory at the University of Missouri studies the molecular and genetic mechanisms mediating the phototropic response in Arabidopsis thaliana.
• Stainier Lab at UC San Francisco take a genetic approach in zebrafish to study vertebrate endoderm, heart and blood vessel formation and function. They are working with several mutations that affect distinct aspects of endodermal and/or cardiovascular development.
• The Brant Weinstein Lab at NIH study the embryonic origins of the vertebrate circulatory system, using the zebrafish as their experimental system.
• Cheng-Ming Chuong's Laboratory of Organogenesis Studies, University of Southern California, current research interests include skin appendage morphogenesis (particularly feather pattern formation); roles of adhesion molecules in mesenchymal condensation during skeletogenesis, and cell adhesion molecules in diseases/skin gene therapy.
• Trevor Dale's Laboratory in the Institute of Cancer Research in London, UK, focuses on Wnt signalling and mammary gland development.
• Gordon Laurie's Laboratory at the University of Virginia focuses on the basement membrane, a ubiquitous feature of epithelial, endothelial, muscle and some neural cells. They study this thin extracellular matrix that mediates cell attachment, growth and differentiation through structural molecules and growth factors, many of which remain uncharacterized.
• Sally Moody's Laboratory at George Washington University, Washington, DC, studies: the role of maternal determinant molecules in establishing the dorsal axis/central nervous system; the identification of the upstream regulatory regions of a neuron-specific beta-tubulin gene; the determination of amacrine cell fates in the retina; fate maps in Xenopus laevis.
• Elba Serrano's lab, Biology, New Mexico State University, focuses on the development of the nervous system in Xenopus, with an emphasis on the sensory systems responsible for hearing and balance. The lab is interested in mechanosensory hair cell differentiation and innervation during inner ear organogenesis and morphogenesis. As part of this effort the lab studies ion channel expression during acoustico-vestibular development.
• Tom Reh's Laboratory University of Washington, studies the mechanisms that control neuronal proliferation and differentiation during neurogenesis in the vertebrate CNS. To look at these questions they use the retina as a model system.
• The Brand Lab at the Max Planck Institute, Dresden, studies the establishment of neuronal cell diversity in the zebrafish neural plate.
• Kidney Development Database The Kidney Development Database, maintained by Jamie Davies and Andre Brandli, has a good introduction to kidney development and it contains detailed gene-expression data on some 200 genes linked to nephrogenesis.
• Biology of the Mammary Gland This Web site serves as a forum to integrate various aspects of Mammary Gland Biology, to promote collaborations and the exchange of ideas, knowledge and resources.
• Jonathan Slack's laboratory at the University of Bath is part of a Developmental Biology Programme working on Xenopus, mouse and zebrafish.

Pattern Formation

• Bill Wood's Lab in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, studies the mechanisms by which cell fates and patterns are determined during embryonic development of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, using techniques of genetics, cell biology, and molecular biology.
• Jeffrey Miller's Lab, University of Minnesota, studies the mechanism of Wnt signal transduction and the role of Wnt signaling in vertebrate development, using Xenopus as a model system. Their focus is on understanding the role of Wnt signaling in the establishment of the dorsal-ventral axis and in the regulation of cell movements during gastrulation and neuralation.
• Igor Dawid's Lab, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, is interested in molecular mechanisms underlying differentiation and pattern formation in the early vertebrate embryo, in particular with respect to the establishment of the body pattern at gastrulation. These questions are being pursued in Xenopus laevis and in the zebrafish.
• Rolf Zeller's Laboratory, University of Basel Medical School, Switzerland, studies the molecular basis of cell-cell signalling over time and space in vertebrate embryos. They use predominantly mouse molecular genetics in combination with embryonic manipulation to study the mechanisms which (1) control establishment of the limb bud organiser (polarsing region), (2) morphogenetic signalling and signal relay during limb bud development, (3) the role of cell-cell signalling during CNS development.
• The McGinnis Lab, Department of Biology, UC San Diego, works on the evolutionary origins of Hox proteins. A long term objective of their research is to understand the molecular interactions that underlie functional specificity in the Hox patterning system.
• Ethan Bier's Lab at UC San Diego is interested in how the Dpp and EGF-R signaling pathways interact to define the neurogenic region of the Drosophila blastoderm embryo, and how these two pathways then collaborate to promote wing vein development during early metamorphosis. They use a combination of molecular and genetic approaches to investigate these developmental questions.
• Chris Doe's Lab in the Institute of Neuroscience and Institute of Molecular Biology at the University of Oregon works on neural patterning, neural stem cells, and neural cell lineage in Drosophila.
• The Carroll Lab at the University of Wisconsin, Madison has several foci: the elaboration of the developmental genetics underlying wing formation in Drosophila, the use of hox genes across animal phyla; and the patterning and prepatterning of butterfly wing color patterns.
• John Klingensmith's lab, Department of Cell Biology, Duke University, studies the embryonic organizer and the mechanisms of early pattern formation in mouse.
• The Sánchez Laboratory, studies the molecular events that lead to pattern formation in amphibian and planarian regeneration.
• The Sive Lab, in the MIT Biology Department, studies anteroposterior patterning in the frog Xenopus laevis and the fish Danio Rerio.
• Sue Bryant's Laboratory in the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine. Their area of research is pattern formation in regenerating and developing vertebrate limbs.
• Xenopus Research at the Sokol Lab Their research focuses on different aspects of signal transduction during patterning in the frog, Xenopus laevis.
• The GIFTS Server (Gene Interactions in the Fly Transworld Server) is a Web server which is mainly devoted to offer resources (databases, references, useful links) to people interested in molecular and genetic interactions. It is the home of GIF_DB (Gene Interactions in the Fly database), a new database of gene interactions involved in Drosophila pattern formation and development.
• Wnt Genes in Drosophila Roel Nusse's lab at Stanford University studies the role of the highly conserved Wnt genes in development. Wnt gene mutations affect many biological processes and Nusse's lab studies how they affect the segmentation of Drosophila embryos, as seen in Drosophila embryos mutant for the segment polarity gene, wingless. His lab studies the genetics and biochemistry of wingless in Drosophila.
• Steve DiNardo's Lab at the University of Pennsylvania Health System studies developmental patterning in embryos and stem cell function during spermatogenesis.
• A.Martinez Arias's research group in The Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge, Cambridge (UK). Their main interest is the role of cell interactions in pattern formation. Their studies focus on the genes wingless and Notch and they use Drosophila as a model system.
• Thomas C.G. Bosch's Developmental Biology of Cnidarians Lab Website. Their research focuses on cellular and molecular aspects of pattern formation and cell differentiation in Cnidaria.
• The Dictyostelium (Cellular Slime Mold) Virtual Library Home Page

Gene Regulation and Genetics

• Phil Soriano's lab, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Center in Seattle, utilizes a variety of molecular and genetic approaches, including gene trapping and gene targeting, to study growth factor signaling in mouse development.
• Joseph Yost's Lab, Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, lab utilizes zebrafish and Xenopus to study Left-Right axis formation in the heart, gut, and brain. These pathways include midline (notochord and neural) development, TGF-beta cell-cell signaling, non-canonical Wnt signaling, and the roles of syndecans in cell signaling, cell migration, fibrillogenesis and heart formation. In addition, we are developing the use of zebrafish genetics to identify modifier genes in cancer development. Collaborative studies extrapolate our results in zebrafish to human genetics, using Utah human genetic databases to discover new genes in cardiovascular development.
• The Walbot Lab, Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, studies the Mutator transposon family of maize. They focus on the developmental regulation of transposition. They want to know by what mechanism(s) are transposition activities restricted to terminal cell divisions.
• The Spitzer Lab at UC San Diego focuses on the question, what are the mechanisms by which neurons differentiate to achieve the spectacular complexity of the brain? Voltage-dependent ion channels and neurotransmitter receptors are expressed at early stages of development, substantially before synapse formation, suggesting that ion channel activity participates in signal transduction that directs subsequent steps of development. They want to understand the mechanisms of generation of spontaneous calcium transients and the mechanisms by which they exert their effects, and at determining the molecular basis of regulation of potassium currents.
• The Raymond Laboratory, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, studies the development and regeneration of the vertebrate retina using both goldfish and zebrafish as model systems. They are especially interested in neurogenesis (the formation of neurons) and neuronal specificity (the expression of differentiated cellular features).
• The Rossant Lab, in the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada, studies the genetic control of many aspects of early mouse development.
• UrchiNet contains information on the function and regulation of genes controlling development in the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. There's information on 50 genes, 26 regulatory regions and 23 gene interactions.
• Zena Werb's lab at UC San Francisco studies the role of extracellular proteolysis in controlling vascular development and angiogenesis during embryonic development and placental formation, bone development and tumorgenesis.
• Laura Burrus' Lab, Department of Biology, San Francisco State University studies the biological role(s) of secreted signaling proteins during vertebrate somite development.
• Tom Cooper's Lab, Department of Pathology, Baylor College of Medicine studies the mechanism of muscle-specific alternative pre-mRNA splicing, myotonic dystrophy, the mechanism of A/C-rich splicing enhancer (ACE) activity, and post-transcriptional regulation of exogenous gene expression.
• Steve Konieczny's Laboratory at Purdue University is interested in understanding the molecular regulatory circuits that function during vertebrate development, especially skeletal muscle development.
• Sonia Pearson-White's lab at the University of Virginia studies how cells respond to cues to proliferate or differentiate, using genetic models in mice. They focus on developing and regenerating skeletal muscle and on T cells undergoing activation. They study the regulation of the Ski/Sno gene family, and how these genes negatively regulate TGF-beta signaling.
• The Transgenic/Targeted Mutation Database (TBASE), Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
  Gene targeting protocols involving homologous recombination in mouse embryonic stem cells results in a large number of mutant lines with specific phenotypes and well-defined DNA structural changes. This Web site is a database of transgenic animals and targeted mutations generated and analyzed worldwide. It also includes knockout models.
• The Jackson Laboratory This site has descriptions of all its mouse strains, as well as, supply sources and information about education related to the role of genetics in health and disease.
• The Mouse Atlas and Gene Expression Database Project The UK MRC Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh is developing a digital atlas of mouse development and database to be a resource for spatially mapped data such as in situ gene expression and cell lineage. The project is in collaboration with the Department of Anatomy, University of Edinburgh. The gene expression database is being developed as part of the Mouse Gene Expression Information Resource (MGEIR) in collaboration with the Jackson Laboratory, USA.
• The World Wide Web Wnt Window (Wnt genes). Roel Nusse at Stanford University maintains this site to keep track of the profusion of data on Wnt genes.
• Randy Moon's Lab at the University of Washington works on the mechanisms of signal transduction by the Wnt gene family, and the functions of these signaling pathways during development in Xenopus and zebrafish. These functions include specification of the dorsal-ventral axis following fertilization, and specification of cell fate in the nervous system.
• Sally Moody's Laboratory at George Washington University, Washington, DC, studies: the role of maternal determinant molecules in establishing the dorsal axis/central nervous system; the identification of the upstream regulatory regions of a neuron-specific beta-tubulin gene; the determination of amacrine cell fates in the retina; fate maps in Xenopus laevis.
• Gary Wessel's PRIMO Site at Brown University focuses on the molecular biology of fertilization and early development in mice, starfish, and sea urchins.
• Xenopus Molecular Marker Resource Peter Vize maintains this site for access to information on molecular markers used in research with Xenopus embryos. There are also useful anatomical figures and the Nieuwkoop and Faber stage series at this site.
• CISTRON--The Goldman Lab Server Michael Goldman's lab at San Francisco State University focuses on the differences in DNA structure in and around transcriptionally active and inactive genes.
• J.A. Campos-Ortega's Lab studies the cellular, genetic and molecular bases of neurogenesis in Drosophila and the zebra fish.
• The Interactive Fly--A cyberspace guide to Drosophila genes and their roles in development.
• FlyBase is a database of genetic and molecular data for Drosophila
• Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project (BDGP) They are building an Encyclopaedia of Drosophila, that's a collaborative effort of the BDGP and FlyBase. A Genome Borwser and Annotated Sequence Viewer is coming soon to their site.
• Victor Ambros Lab: Developmental Genetics of C. elegans
• Brian Black's Lab, University of Claifornia-San Francisco, works on the molecular biology of skeletal and cardiac muscle development; they employ multiple genetic systems, including transgenic mice, transgenic flies, and numerous cell culture model systems.
• Michael Herman's lab, Kansas State University, studies how cell polarity is established and controlled during metazoan development, using the free-living soil nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as a model. As cellular asymmetry is estabished, orientation to the body axis of an animal gives each cell a polarity. It is important both for cells that divide asymmetrically to generate different kinds of daughter cells, and for cells that migrate to be oriented to the body axis.
• WormBase is a repository of mapping, sequencing and phenotypic information about the C. elegans nematode.
• Ira Herskowitz's Yeast Genetics Lab Web site at the University of California San Francisco has protocols, research abstracts, news & views, addresses, and many links to other sites.

Cell Lineage and Fate Maps

• The Strome Lab at Indiana University focuses on how one-cell embryos generate the diverse array of different tissue types seen in adult organisms. In the nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, as in many species, this process is guided mainly by maternally supplied factors. They are taking advantage of the powerful genetics available in C. elegans to identify some of the maternal components required for the specification and development of a specific cell type, the germ line.

Evolution and Development

• Cnidaria WWW Server, maintained by Rob Steele at UC Irvine - is a site for researchers who use cnidarians as research systems. With the recent increase in interest in the evolution of developmental mechanisms, researchers should find this site a useful resource for accessing information on cnidarian development. This site also includes a link to the Cnidaria Newsgroup.
• James Hanken Lab - Current research in evolutionary developmental biology; focusing on cranial development, neural crest migration, and the endocrinology of morphology.
• Billie Swalla's Lab studies the control of gene activation during embryonic development and how developmental genes may influence morphology and larval life history. Their primary work is done studying primitive chordates, ascidians, in which closely related species have evolved amazingly different larval morphologies and life histories.

Diseases, Defects and Development

• Helen Blau's Laboratory, Stanford University School of Medicine, is internationally known for establishing the plasticity of the differentiated state. Dr. Blau's elegant heterokaryon experiments proved that silent muscle genes could be activated in diverse specialized adult cells. Recently she showed that adult bone-marrow-derived stem cells are similarly plastic. Her innovative approaches have profoundly impacted biology and medicine.
• Hubert Schorle's lab at the University of Bonn - Medical School studies the biology of the transcription factors of the AP-2 family (TFAP2). They generate knockout and transgenic mice in order to address the functional role of AP-2 genes in vertebrate development.
• Stephen Alexander's laboratory at the University of Missouri uses Dictyiostelim discoideum as a model system for studies on: 1. molecular and cellular mechanisms of resistance to anticancer drugs; 2. regulation of protein secretion during development.
• Zena Werb's lab at UC San Francisco studies the role of extracellular proteolysis in controlling vascular development and angiogenesis during embryonic development and placental formation, bone development and tumorgenesis.
• Tumor Suppressor Genes in Drosophila and Their Human Homologs; Genetics of Development in Drosophila The objective of research in Peter J. Bryant's laboratory (UC Irvine) is to understand how cell proliferation is controlled during development, and how genetic mutations lead to growth abnormalities and cancer. They approach this problem using a genetic approach in Drosophila, by identifying and characterizing tumor suppressor genes, in which mutations cause excessive cell proliferation in the developing organs of mutant larvae. Efforts from this lab and others have led to the identification of over 60 of these genes, and over 20 of them have been cloned. Almost all of them have human homologs whose potential roles in cancer are now being investigated.
• Atlas of Developmental Abnormalities in Common Laboratory Mammals This website is designed for rapid access to the image(s) of developmental abnormalities in common laboratory mammals.

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Developmental Biology
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