1997:   Pattern Formation During Development, Vol. LXII

Organizer: Bruce Stillman

Table of Contents

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One of the great scientific accomplishments of the past decade was the recognition that the mech¬anisms used for patterning of tissues and organs during development are remarkably similar among species. What works for flies and frogs also serves human beings very well as embryos acquire their form and identity. To celebrate these marvelous discoveries, the 62nd Symposium in this series fo¬cused on pattern formation during development, with a particular emphasis on evolutionarily con¬served mechanisms and molecules.

This outstanding series of meetings began in 1933, in the midst of economic depression. Each meeting lasted for 5 weeks while scientists were in residence at Cold Spring Harbor, and there were no time limits on the length of presentations or discussions. This "experiment in scientific proce¬dure," reflecting the apparent tranquility of academic life in those days, lasted for 8 years. The sec¬ond Symposium, entitled Aspects of Growth, included several papers dealing with differentiation and development.

For the 1941 Symposium, the new Director of the Laboratory, Milislav Demerec, condensed the program into 2 weeks, and his second Symposium focused on The Relation of Hormones to Devel¬opment, with 17 presentations. In 1948, Demerec changed the meeting to 8 days, held in early June, and this has been the arrangement until this year. Given the dramatic changes in the pace of scientific discovery in the biological sciences, the modern methods for rapid dissemination of information, and the fact that in many families, both spouses have demanding careers, scientists find it difficult, if not impossible, to spend more than a week at a meeting, Thus, I have shortened the program to 5 days, still considered by some to be a long time for a meeting. This was done after much thought, keeping in mind the goals of this particular series and indeed of all the meetings at Cold Spring Harbor Lab¬oratory. The idea is not to present a series of observations from a collection of individuals, but to pro¬vide sufficient time during the meeting for the experts in a field of biology to discuss the issues of the day and to determine how progress might be accomplished.

During 8 days in 1954, the Symposium focused on The Mammalian Fetus: Physiological Aspects of Development. The science was descriptive, but some ideas presented were the forerunners of the modern approaches to understanding development. Salome Glueckshon-Waelsch discussed the T (Brachyury) locus and a genetic approach to understanding development that foreshadowed the pow¬erful approaches to come. Then after a long hiatus between Symposia on this topic, Joe Sambrook or¬ganized in 1985 the 50th Symposium on the Molecular Biology of Development. The Symposium celebrated the conversion of developmental biology from a descriptive, anatomically based science to a mechanism-driven science of great interest.

In the dozen years since, we have learned much about the exquisite mechanisms that specify de¬velopment, but most importantly, the evolutionary conservation of the pathways that govern devel¬opment has emerged. We are no longer bound by technology, as in the early days of these Symposia, and modern technology has taken us to new heights unimagined even 12 years ago.

The field of developmental biology is now very large, and coupled with the decision to shorten the program, the inevitable difficult decisions about the selection of speakers and topics had to be made. I would have liked to include the important topic of imprinting, for example, but perhaps this could be the topic of its own Symposium in the near