Internationally renowned developmental biologist Dr. Charles Kimmel will give a public lecture on early embryonic development today at 4 p.m. in the Gerlinger Alumni Lounge.
Kimmel, winner of a College of Arts and Sciences 2002-03 Distinguished Professor Award for excellence in teaching and research, plans to share his knowledge of how vertebrate DNA orchestrates cellular development from a shapeless mass of cells to an embryo with a backbone.
“Chuck has been a real innovator and a major leader in understanding how embryos develop and how tissues form,” University Biology Professor Dr. Monte Westerfield said.
Westerfield said that Kimmel uses a unique combination of classical genetic techniques and state of the art microscopy to study the transparent embryos of zebrafish. After marking zebrafish genes with special dyes, Kimmel uses time-lapse photography to record seamless video of embryonic development. Kimmel said the genes that guide development in zebrafish can be found in many different organisms, and that his lecture will give people a chance to see modern developmental biology that uses a locally famous animal, the zebrafish.
“By studying zebrafish,” Kimmel said, “we learn how development proceeds in vertebrates and mammals, including humans.”

— Andrew Black