Developmental Biology & Regenerative Medicine

[MUSIC PLAYING] Developmental biology is the study of the organism during embryonic development, whereas regenerative medicine or regeneration is a process that happens in adult animals or humans. And here at NYU, we're trying to understand regenerative medicine by going back to the developmental biology, trying to understand the processes that are involved, and then go to the adult system and try to jump-start these mechanisms to repair or regenerate the injured or diseased tissue. Developmental biology has been a strong field at NYU for quite some time, and it continues to grow and add new dimensions. For example, there are people now really pushing the limits of live imaging in developmental biology, in whole organisms and all the way down to single molecules, to learn deeper mechanisms of development. In the case of the zebrafish, this tiny embryo really provides a lot of advantages to study embryonic development, disease, and regeneration. The embryo is transparent, so you can have unprecedented visual to that embryo. You can see events as they happen in real time and while the animal is alive. Because the egg develops outside the mother in the water. So from the moment you have a single cell embryo onto adulthood, you have access. I think we're at a really good stage at this point to connect the strengths at NYU Medical School in developmental biology to regenerative medicine, which is clearly in the long term in the future going to be a much more translational perspective. I was specifically interested in understanding how somatic cells, meaning skin cells, can be reprogrammed to embryonic stem cells. These embryonic stem cells have the capacity to make any cell type of our body. The reason why I came to NYU was because of the strong stem cell program that they were offering me. So the faculty was really good in stem cell biology and they were also very friendly. So for me it was a very easy decision. [MUSIC PLAYING]