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This archived information is dated to the 2008-09 academic year only and may no longer be current.

For currently applicable policies and information, see the current Stanford Bulletin.

Developmental Biology

In this section:

Graduate Programs in Developmental Biology

Up one level:

School of Medicine

Emeriti: (Professors) David S. Hogness, A. Dale Kaiser

Chair: Roeland Nusse

Associate Chair: Lucy Shapiro

Professors: Ben Barres, Philip Beachy, Gerald Crabtree, Margaret Fuller, Stuart Kim, David Kingsley, Roeland Nusse, Matthew Scott, Lucy Shapiro, James Spudich, William Talbot, Irving Weissman

Associate Professors: Seung Kim, Anne Villeneuve

Assistant Professors: Gill Bejerano, Joanna Wysocka

Professor (Teaching): Ellen Porzig

Professor (Research): Harley McAdams

Courses offered by the Department of Development Biology have the subject code DBIO, and are listed in the "Developmental Biology [DBIO] Courses" section of this bulletin.

A fundamental problem in biology is how the complex set of multicellular structures that characterize an adult animal is generated from the fertilized egg. Recent advances at the molecular level, particularly with respect to the genetic control of development, have been explosive. These advances represent the beginning of a major movement in the biological sciences toward the understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying developmental decisions and the resulting morphogenetic processes. This new thrust in developmental biology derives from the extraordinary methodological advances of the past decade in molecular genetics, immunology, and biochemistry. However, it also derives from groundwork laid by the classical developmental studies, the rapid advances in cell biology and animal virology, and from models borrowed from prokaryotic systems. Increasingly, the work is directly related to human diseases, including oncogene function and inherited genetic disease.

The Department of Developmental Biology includes a critical mass of scientists who are leading the thrust in developmental biology and who can train new leaders in the attack on the fundamental problems of development. Department labs work on a wide variety of organisms from microbes to worms, flies, and mice. The dramatic evolutionary conservation of genes that regulate development makes the comparative approach of the research particularly effective. Scientists in the department labs have a very high level of interaction and collaboration. The discipline of developmental biology draws on biochemistry, cell biology, genetics, molecular biology, and genomics. People in the department have a major interest in regenerative medicine and stem cell biology.

The department is located in the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine within the Stanford University Medical Center.

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