DPAG houses the largest assembly of developmental biologists in the Medical Sciences Division with groups using the mouse, chick and flies, and working in areas that cut across all of DPAG’s other themes. Many researchers in this theme employ state-of-the-art live cell imaging and genetic strategies to address fundamental problems in developmental, evolutionary, reproductive and cellular biology. Developmental biology and genetics have had a profound impact on our understanding of the genes and cellular processes that underlie disease, because for example, genes that regulate cell growth, differentiation, survival and movement play major roles in cancer, diabetes and degenerative diseases.

DPAG has particular strengths in:

• regulation of processes that control cell movement in the developing embryo and nervous system
• cerebral cortical development and evolution, and neural stem cells
• comparative genomics, particularly relating to non-coding RNAs
• regulation of growth by growth factors and nutrients and its relevance to cancer
• control of human and animal fertility and stress by steroids, and regulation in the anterior pituitary
• processes regulating oogenesis and female fertility