Eric Wieschaus (Princeton) Part 1: Patterning Development in the Embryo

Following fertilization, the single celled embryo undergoes a number of mitotic divisions to produce a ball of cells called a blastula or blastoderm. Although these cells are all genetically identical, they gradually begin to express different gene products that reflect the regions of the adult body they will form. In my first lecture I discuss how these initial patterns of gene expression arise. In Drosophila, a maternally supplied transcription