Recent debates about model organisms echo far into the past; taking a longer view adds perspective to present concerns. The major approaches in the history of research on vertebrate embryos have tended to exploit different species, though there are long-term continuities too. Early nineteenth-century embryologists worked on surrogates for humans and began to explore the range of vertebrate embryogenesis; late nineteenth-century Darwinists hunted exotic ontogenies; around 1900 experimentalists favored living embryos in which they could easily intervene; reproductive scientists tackled farm animals and human beings; after World War II developmental biologists increasingly engineered species for laboratory life; and proponents of evo-devo have recently challenged the resulting dominance of a few models. Decisions about species have depended on research questions, biological properties, supply lines, and, not least, on methods. Nor are species simply chosen; embryology has transformed them even as they have profoundly shaped the science.
CITATION STYLE
Hopwood, N. (2011). Approaches and Species in the History of Vertebrate Embryology. In Methods in Molecular Biology (Vol. 770, pp. 1–20). Humana Press Inc. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-210-6_1
Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.