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The new field of evolutionary developmental biology is one of the most exciting areas of contemporary biology. The fundamental principle of evolutionary developmental biology ("evo-devo") is that evolution acts through inherited changes in the development of the organism. "Evo-devo" is not merely a fusion of the fields of developmental and evolutionary biology, the grafting of a developmental perspective onto evolutionary biology, or the incorporation of an evolutionary perspective into developmental biology. Evo-devo strives for a unification of genomic, developmental, organismal, population, and natural selection approaches to evolutionary change. It draws from development, evolution, paleontology, ecology, and molecular and systematic biology, but has its own set of questions, approaches, and methods.

Keywords and Concepts in Evolutionary Developmental Biology is the first comprehensive reference work for this expanding field. Covering more than fifty central terms and concepts in entries written by leading experts, Keywords offers an overview of all that is embraced by this new subdiscipline of biology, providing the core insights and ideas that show how embryonic development relates to life-history evolution, adaptation, and responses to and integration with environmental factors.

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This is a charming memoir of the recently deceased professor emeritus of biology at Yale University. In it, J. P. Trinkaus ("Trink") describes his upbringing, scientific education, research activities, and philosophy of his interesting life as one of America's most distinguished and beloved developmental biologists. Few scientists can match Trink's record of publication in eight decades, starting with his first research publication in 1939 and continuing until 2003 with the posthumous publication of his life story. Through all these years, Trink used his extraordinary strength of character and dedication to science to investigate the mysteries of the development of early vertebrate embryos. Along the way, through his affiliations with Yale University and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, Trinkaus enriched the scientific and personal lives of countless friends, students, and colleagues. His scientific career extended from the classical period of experimental embryology to the modern day molecular approach to understanding problems of development. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

A must have...
Young investigator starting your own lab? Fresh Ph.D student on the verge of giving up science? READ THIS BOOK! As an embryologist (and an embryologist's wife) struggling to find a position in today's difficult economic situation, this book put things in perspective. In this book, personal and scientific stories are intertwined in a formidable fashion. This makes the whole book understandable by most: even if you don't get the scientific part, you will understand and possibly relate to the personal account of this 20th century man. I did not have the honor to meet "The Trink" but I met or read many of his former student. I had the utmost respect (to say the least) for the scientist. Now, I wish I had met the man.

Joie de Vivre
My first and last time meeting Professor John Philip Trinkaus was in 1995 at the annual meeting of the Society for Developmental Biology. He was there to receive the first E. G. Conklin Medal. It was an award to "a developmental biologist who has made and is continuing to make outstanding contributions to the field."

The book editor asked Professor Trinkaus to write his life down. I think Professor Trinkaus did just that. It is a story of his love of science, his study of epiboly, his teaching philosophy, his marriages, his view on religion, his political activity (and how it affected employment), his account on anti-Semitism at Yale, and more.

His scientific lineage traced back to Georges Cuvier, and Louis Agassiz. He wanted to see a comprehensive understanding of a complex biological phenomenon by piecing molecular, cytological, and behavioral studies together. He described his fun at Wood Holes. He pointed out Ross Harrison's view on the determination concept. He explained the failure to identify the chemical nature of the organizer, his experiments on glucose that stimulated quite a lot of morphogenesis in blastoderm (but no heart), the advantage of cross-disciplinary training, and the reason for the joy of research. Personality does make a difference in science, at least it determines if you would seek someone out or not. He also explained how to choose a Ph.D. dissertation topic, the benefits of being independent, and the function of a professor in attracting students, assigning problems, providing students with independence, and setting high standards by example. He revealed the rationale for sole authorship of graduate students, and the problems of basing evaluation on the number of publications. He cautioned the understanding of pathways and epigenetic process has been ignored in the cytoplasm starting from the genes. He expressed his uneasy feeling about prizes to individual scientists because of the collectivity nature of science, and his guiding principle for serious research.

In addition to biologists, people interested in American history will find this book fascinating.

Life should be fun
Life should be fun, as well as interesting. Few scientists have the knack of optimizing this fun, for others as well as themselves. For many decades, the best parties in Woods Hole were notoriously those given by JP Trinkaus, who died this past spring just after completing this autobiography.
This man was remarkable in two main ways. One was the steadiness of his own research. In every decade from the 1930s to the 2000s, he published substantial contributions to embryology. These included the key labeling experiments that proved sorting out by dissociated cells of higher vertebrates. He also wrote the leading book on how cell movements relate to embryology, Cells Into Organs: The Forces that Shape the Embryo (Second Edition, 1984. Englewood Cliffs (NJ): Prentice Hall).
His other special talent was social. This included the courage and instant wit to puncture powerful scientific bullies. On of these, who habitually pontificated negatively after lectures by younger scientists, got what he had long deserved in this reply: "Did everyone get the question, or shall I repeat it?" Such irreverence was frequent. More often, however, his social talents were positive: a skill for stirring people up, getting them together, encouraged, enthusiastic, or sometimes exasperated. His research seminars, like his parties, were famously stimulating. During both, his guests magically became smarter and happier than usual. That warm magic comes through in this book.
There are also surprises: his mother became New York State chair of the Women's Christian Temperence Union (WCTU); he was briefly in a secret cell of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CP-USA); and he was friends with Judge Bork. Few scientific biographies have so skillfully woven actual research discoveries into the personal details of a life. Readers can learn a lot about fish embryos here, as well as how much fun it is to make discoveries. This book would be a good gift for nonscientist friends, or for a young person thinking of going into science, to show them what a research career can be like. Researchers themselves can find a lot of wisdom, such as what we really mean by criticizing research as "too descriptive," how cell sorting is related to normal development, and how to manage graduate students.
Other reasons to buy this book include Phillip Armstong's beautiful drawings of developing fish embryos, printed at the outer upper corners of each page, so one can flip through the pages and produce a time lapse. People who knew Trink will enjoy this book, and those who did not know him will find out how much they missed.
Book review by Albert K. Harris, Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill from Quarterly Review of Biology, 79(1), March 2004, reprinted with permission of The University of Chicago Press.

candid and perceptive
Embryologist: My Eight Decades in Developmental Biology by John Philip Trinkaus combines the passion and diligence of the researcher with a rare frankness about himself, his colleagues, and his discipline. Candid and perceptive, he brings to life crowds of people and takes us with them on a voyage of discovery into some of today's most important scientific advances.
Submitted for Dr. Trachtenberg by Dr. Kurt E. Johnson, President and Publisher, J&S Publishing Company

A literary gem
This personal memoir by the world's leading authority on morphogenetic movements in early embryonic development is a literary gem. The writing is lucid and expressive, and the author's style conveys in a clear, direct voice that will be easily grasped by lay people, the fundamental questions in the early development of animals. I was sorry when I finished reading the book because I wanted more.

Of greater importance, in my opinion, is the obvious passion Trinkaus evinced for his craft and for the animal material he worked with all of his life. This emerges not only from his careful, critical discussions of basic questions concerning cellular movements, and the reasons for the experimental approaches taken by him and his scientific colleagues, but in his descriptions recounting the excitement of discovery, starting in his late teens when he studied the genetics of pigmentation in goldfish, and continuing into his sixties, when, in a darkened laboratory at the Roscoff Biological Station in France, he discovered for the first time directed (pigment) cell movement in the developing eggs of the blenny, a small marine fish. A sentient reader can follow through the pages of this latter journey of discovery and experience the fervor that gripped this outstanding scientist on the cusp of one of the last important scientific forays of his productive life.

Trink's friends and colleagues who have not already purchased a copy of this memoir should do so, because they will have the experience of revisiting, in a delivery redolent of his characteristic bluntness and panache, the personal and professional passions that directed his life and the obvious pleasure he derived from his close personal relationships. As someone who knew and admired this exceptional scholar for fifty years, I promise you that reading this memoir will be a moving experience. Trink is gone but his remarkable spirit lives on in his memoir.

Review submitted by Kurt E. Johnson, Ph. D. on behalf of Dr. Mellon. ... Read more

Product Description
Philosophers of science have tended to avoid the problem of "development" by focusing primarily on evolutionary biology and, more recently, on molecular biology and genetics. Jason Scott Robert explores the nature of development as it relates to current concepts in biological theory and practice and analyzes the interrelations between development and evolution (evo-devo), an area of resurgent biological inquiry. ... Read more

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Ubiquitous and fundamental in cell mechanics, multiscale problems can arise in the growth of tumors, embryogenesis, tissue engineering, and more. Cell Mechanics: From Single Scale-Based Models to Multiscale Modeling brings together new insight and research on mechanical, mathematical, physical, and biological approaches for simulating the behavior of cells, specifically tumor cells.

In the first part of the text, the book discusses the powerful tool of microrheology for investigating cell mechanical properties, multiphysics and multiscale approaches for studying intracellular mechanisms in cell motility, and the role of subcellular effects involving certain genes for inducing cell motility in cancer. Focusing on models based on physical, mathematical, and computational approaches, the second section develops tools for describing the complex interplay of cell adhesion molecules and the dynamic evolution of the cell cytoskeleton. The third part explores cell interactions with the environment, particularly the role of external mechanical forces and their effects on cell behavior. The final part presents innovative models of multicellular systems for developmental biology, cancer, and embryogenesis.

This book collects novel methods to apply to cells and tissues through a multiscale approach. It presents numerous existing tools while stimulating the discovery of new approaches that can lead to more effective and accurate predictions of pathologies.

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Habitat destruction has left many landscapes increasingly fragmented. These isolated populations, or metapopulations, are in a constant state of change-growing, shrinking, disappearing, and reappearing. This unique volume brings together an international team of ecologists, geneticists, and evolutionary biologists who provide a comprehensive review of metapopulations. This book will provide fundamental reading for anyone studying the spatial dynamics of populations.
This book is an essential reference for anyone who is interested in conservation and population dynamics.

Key Features
* Essential for biologists interested in spatial population dynamics
* Serves as a valuable reference to conservationists
* Covers both the principal theories and field studies
* Reviews the ecology, genetics, and evolution of metapopulations ... Read more

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A comprehensive account of the role of the islets of Langerhans is presented in this text.As the primary source of hormone production in the pancreas, the islets of Langerhans have been the focus of research into the nature of diabetes for decades.In recent years, the molecular biology of this multiendocrine organ has been intensively investigated, with a corresponding increase in our understanding of the normal and pathological functioning of islet cells. This is the first comprehensive treatment of molecular studies on the synthesis of insulin, glucagon, somatostatin and pancreatic polypeptide.In addition, this volume presents contemporary hypotheses and explanations, at the molecular level, of the defects in islet cells that may lead to diabetes. ... Read more

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How do single cells recognize gravity and apply their perception to their ecological advantage? This book summarizes historical and current approaches to this basic question. Single cells play a significant role in food webs and also present valuable model systems for studying the mechanisms of gravity perception, a topic of increasing interest in these days of experimentation in space. The book is directed to biologists and other life scientists interested in space sciences, cellular evolution, cell motility, signal transduction and ecophysiology. ... Read more

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The study of plant development using molecular and genetic techniques is rapidly becoming one of the most active areas of research on flowering plants. The aim of this book is to present a sense of the accomplishments of the past and of the outstanding problems of the future in the study of plant development. An important feature of this book is the integration of results from molecular and genetic studies on various aspects of plant development in a cellular and physiological context. Of particular interest to readers will be the clear treatment of each landmark stage in the life cycle of plants such as seed germination, seedling growth, flowering, gametogenesis, pollen-pistil interactions, embryogenesis, fruit ripening, and seed and bud dormancy. The book also considers the development of individual plant organs such as the shoot, leaf, root and flowers as well as alternate developmental strategies of plants. Appropriately, emphasis is placed on new insights on the molecular and genetic biology of plant development obtained from model systems like Arabidopsis and maize.

The book is intended as a text for courses in plant development for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in plant biology, botany or agriculture. The book will also be of interest to any biologist wishing to gain an understanding of current and future perspectives in the development of flowering plants. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Comprehensive review
This is a good book for advanced botany and plant biology students.The author has a comprehensive literature review. ... Read more

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Extracellular matrix proteins are serious, common human diseases that are caused by mutations in genes that encode these proteins.This has spurred a great number of researchers to study the extracellular matrix, sometimes by choice and sometimes by necessity. Much progress has been made in the last decade towards understanding what matrix proteins do and how cells interact with and respond to them. Volume 15 is a compilation of reviews by experts in their respective fields. The chapters in this book address the biology of a broad spectrum of extracellular matrix molecules and their functions in development and disease.

This book has been designed to focus on a diverse subset of matrix proteins that have been shown to be important for development, function, and disease.The book therefore both presents a broad view of the field and provides crucial details about some of the best-studied matrix molecules.

* Written by leaders in the field
* Discusses the potential of matrix components to be used as therapeutic tools for the treatment and prevention of cancer
* Offers a section on integrin signaling and the development of the central nervous system, detailing the migration of neurons and the glia
* Covers a diverse array of molecules such as laminins, collagens, heparan sulfate proteoglycans, integrins, and more ... Read more

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The author brings his background in computer programming to bear on the problem of pattern formation models, offering a guide which lists over 1000 references in the research literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Superb scholarship!
An unbelievably thorough, yet concise distillate of the whole of classical biological patterning theory.The bibliography alone is priceless.

Every developmental biologist should have this book.
Dr. Held has done a fantastic job distilling pattern formation processes to a collection of model classes.The bibliography alone is priceless - an superb piece of scholarship. Thank you, Dr. Held.

Just plain Interesting.
I used this book, authored by my professor, while taking developmental biology in my final semester of a Cell & Molecular Biology degree plan.The book reflects my professor's very interesting approach to learning development: skeptical examination (in the iconoclastic tradition) of the principles underlying various models, which is more important than traditional undergraduate memorization of -say -mammalian embryonic fate maps (bo-ring!).His work is the first to hold developmental mechanisms up to the light together for a discriminating view.Don't forget your mental climbing boots when you read this- there's not an ounce of fluff. ... Read more

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Although evolutionary developmental biology is a new field, itsorigins lie in the last century; the search for connections betweenembryonic development (ontogeny) and evolutionary change (phylogeny)has been a long one. Evolutionary developmental biology is howevermore than just a fusion of the fields of developmental andevolutionary biology. It forges a unification of genomic,developmental, organismal, population and natural selection approachesto evolutionary change. It is concerned with how developmentalprocesses evolve; how evolution produces novel structures, functionsand behaviours; and how development, evolution and ecology areintegrated to bring about and stabilize evolutionary change.
The previous edition of this title, published in 1992, defined theterms and laid out the field for evolutionary developmental biology.This field is now one of the most active and fast growing withinbiology and this is reflected in this second edition, which is morethan twice the length of the original and brought completely up todate. There are new chapters on major transitions in animal evolution,expanded coverage of comparative embryonic development and theinclusion of recent advances in genetics and molecular biology.
The book is divided into eight parts which:

• place evolutionary developmental biology in the historical context ofthe search for relationships between development and evolution;
• detail the historical background leading to evolutionary embryology;
• explore embryos in development and embryos in evolution;
• discuss the relationship between embryos, evolution, environment andecology;
• discuss the dilemma for homology of the fact thatdevelopment evolves;
• deal with the importance of understandinghow embryos measure time and place both through development andevolutionarily through heterochrony and heterotrophy; and set out theprinciples and processes that underlie evolutionary developmentalbiology.

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This volume presents an overview of the genetic controls and signalling mechanisms governing cell growth and cell-cell interactions in early development. Topics include cellular and genetic control of early developmental and growth processes in organisms, ranging from Drosophila, C elegans, Xenopau and higher plants to higher vertebrates. Pattern formation, cell migration and the relationship of cell architecture to the regulation of gene expression are included. ... Read more

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Teaches students to work as independent investigators on problems in development, and provides extensive background information and instructions for each experiment. The book emphasizes study of living material. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Book
This book covers many of the experiments that are covered in a Developmental biology coursework. Great hands on Lab manual!! ... Read more

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This Series provides a comprehensive survey of the major topics in the field of developmental biology. The volumes are valuable to researchers in animal and plant development, as well as to students and professionals who want an introduction to cellular and molecular mechanisms of development. The Series has recently passed its 30-year mark, making it the longest-running forum for contemporary issues in developmental biology. ... Read more