Developmental Biology

Developmental biology asks how a single fertilized cell becomes a structured organism, how identity, pattern, and form emerge from the same genome through differential gene expression, cell signaling, and tissue interactions. You'll work through these mechanisms across the classic model systems (Drosophila, zebrafish, chick, Xenopus, mouse), graded on a midterm, final, and a presentation, with the Gilbert & Barresi textbook as the backbone. It sits downstream of molecular biology and genetics coursework and pulls those tools into a concrete question, how embryos build themselves, which is the conceptual entry point to stem cell biology, regeneration, and most of modern developmental genetics research.