0:00
Hello, my
name is Robb Krumlauf,
and I am the scientific
director of the Stowers
Institute for Medical Research.
What I'd like to talk to you
about today in this lecture
are discussion of the
Hox gene regulation
in vertebrate hindbrain development.
0:18
To begin our lecture, I would
like to discuss by introduction
the biological question
that we're interested in.
The title of this slide
is origins and diversity
of the basic animal body plan.
In this beautiful
artist's interpretation,
you can see that the
body plans of animals
are very different from each other.
And throughout history
we have wondered
how these plans are laid down.
Are plans specific for a mouse,
or a human, or other organisms?
What we are beginning
to realize is that there
are common roots to
all of these plans.
And that is going to be a
theme that I talk to you
about through understanding
the function of Hox genes.
1:02
It is interesting that
historically embryologists
have been aware of this
problem for a long time.
In this cover sheet from a famous
book by Ernst Haeckel published
in 1874, he discusses interesting
features of the developing embryos.
1:22
In his book, this is a beautiful
representation of the first example
of what many refer to
as a phylogenetic tree.
It shows the branches
and roots for how
animals are related to each other.
And this work now has
become very advanced,
but it was very thought
provoking at the time.
