World renowned embryologist, Nicole le Douarin, an honorary professor at the College of France, will deliver the fall 2012 George H. Boyd Distinguished Lecture.
She will speak at 3:30 p.m. on Oct. 10 in Room 101 of the Pharmacy South building. Her lecture is titled “Tracing the Migration of Cells during Development: An Overview of 40 Years of Studies with the Avian Embryo.”
The Boyd Distinguished Lecture Series, supported by the Office of the Vice President for Research and the William S. and Elizabeth K. Boyd Foundation, brings national leaders and policymakers to UGA in science, education and related fields to discuss applications of research to contemporary issues in education. The lectures are free and open to the public.
“We are thrilled to have Dr. le Douarin visit campus,” said David Lee, vice president for research. “She has had a long and illustrious career unraveling the migration and differentiation of cells during mammalian development. Her work has provided multiple fundamental insights in developmental biology, neurobiology, immunology and hematopoiesis. She is a wonderful role model for our younger scientists.”
Le Douarin is a pioneer of modern developmental biology. She is particularly famous for her work with quail-chicken chimeras, artificially created birds that contain cells of both
animals.
Her landmark 1969 paper describing a new method to track the development of embryonic neural cells in these chimeras provided an unprecedented ability to observe and characterize these multipotent cells that go on to become cartilage, bone, muscle, skin pigment and many other critical structures.
Her observations shed considerable light on the importance of embryonic science as a tool to understand development and evolution of not just birds, but all vertebrates.
