CONFERENCE: Symposia in Evolutionary Developmental Biology, to be held January 4-8, 2000, Atlanta, GA

这项提案的资助使得在进化和发育生物学领域开展跨学科工作的科学家们能够召开一次独特的会议。 这将在2000年1月4日至8日在佐治亚州亚特兰大举行的综合生物学学会（SICB）年会上进行。 在这些会议上，将在SICB内成立一个新的部门，即发育进化生物学部门，这是世界上第一个跨学科的科学团体。 从NSF收到的资金将允许两个相关的研讨会在这些历史性的会议上举行。 第一部分是比较胚胎学在过去世纪的概况和历史。 比较胚胎学家是第一批研究进化和发育之间联系的科学家。 第二个将是一个研讨会，研究一组特殊的基因，HOX基因复合体，在胚胎发育期间决定所有动物的身体计划中的作用。 正是通过胚胎发育的过程，通过基因组与卵子中特殊因子的相互作用，形成了一个独特的有机体。 随着基因组计划继续阐明苍蝇、蠕虫和人类基因组中的DNA序列，我们可以开始研究这些基因组在胚胎发育期间如何在时间和空间上以精心编排的方式表达。发展进化生物学这门新学科的出现是为了研究不同的生物体是如何用一组相似的基因产生的，因为我们现在知道所有动物在胚胎发育过程中都使用相同类型的基因。结合历史概述审查这一跨学科思想的基础和顶级Evo-Devo研究人员在会议上的在场，有望突出这一新学科，以及它在理解身体计划如何在发展过程中做出的非凡承诺。

This proposal's funding makes possible a unique meeting of scientists doing interdisciplinary work in Evolutionary and Developmental Biology. This will happen at the Society for Integrative Biology's (SICB) Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA on January 4-8, 2000. At these meetings, a new Division will be formed within SICB, a division for Developmental Evolutionary Biology, the first interdisciplinary scientific group of its kind in the world. The money received from NSF will allow two related symposia to take place at these historic meetings. The first will be an overview and history of comparative embryology over the past century. Comparative embryologists were the first scientists to examine the link between evolution and development. The second will be a symposium examining the role of a special group of genes, the HOX gene complex, in determining body plans in all animals during embryonic development. It is through the process of embryonic development that a unique organism is made, through the interaction of the genome with special factors within the egg. As genome projects continue to elucidate the DNA sequences in the fly, worm and human genomes, we can begin to study how these genomes are expressed during embryonic development in a carefully orchestrated fashion in time and space. This new discipline of Developmental Evolutionary Biology has emerged to examine how different organisms are generated with a similar set of genes, because we know now that all animals use the same kinds of genes during embryonic development. The combination of the historical overview examining the foundations of this interdisciplinary thought and the presence of the top Evo-Devo researchers in the field at the meeting promises to highlight this new discipline and the extraordinary promise that it shows in understanding how body plans are made during development.