François Jacob, or the thirst for novelty

François Jacob tackled embryonic development from 1972 onwards, in the “Génétique cellulaire” Unit of the Molecular Biology Department at the Pasteur Institute, taking as models teratocarcinoma and the early stages of mouse embryo development. Studies on teratocarcinoma provided no major information...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Research in microbiology 2014-06, Vol.165 (5), p.370-374
Main Author: Nicolas, Jean-François
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biochemistry, Molecular Biology
Cell Biology - history
Cell Biology - trends
Cytogenetics - history
Cytogenetics - trends
Development Biology
Drosophila
Embryonal carcinoma cells
Embryonic stem cells
Embryonic Stem Cells - physiology
History, 20th Century
History, Philosophy and Sociology of Sciences
Humanities and Social Sciences
iPS
Jacob
LacZ
Life Sciences
Mice
miRNA
Molecular Biology - history
Molecular Biology - trends
Nicolas
Teratocarcinoma
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Summary:François Jacob tackled embryonic development from 1972 onwards, in the “Génétique cellulaire” Unit of the Molecular Biology Department at the Pasteur Institute, taking as models teratocarcinoma and the early stages of mouse embryo development. Studies on teratocarcinoma provided no major information about developmental processes, but they were the essential step without which embryonic stem cells (ES, iPS) would probably not have been discovered. The mechanisms of development were revealed by genetic approaches coupled to molecular biology, but with the Drosophila model rather than the mouse embryo. Since these studies, it has been revealed that developmental mechanisms among animals have proven to be universal. None of these results were predicted in 1972.
ISSN:0923-2508
1769-7123
0923-2508
DOI:10.1016/j.resmic.2014.05.014