The biology of foetal development and injury

This oversimplified view of foetal development and the risk to injury aims to highlight the following: assuming there is a normal environment, gene expression will generate a protein chain that should fold to the expected stereological shape to function normally. Here we must take into consideration the important role played by external (environmental) factors. Abnormal organogenesis or foetal injury are, in all likelihood, due to abnormal genes or genes expressing themselves 'out of sinc', that is to say 'outside' their time allocated for expression. This type of injury is difficult to correct. Morphogenesis, or the continuous remodelling of formed organ/systems can be more amenable to correction since the basic layout of the organ already exists. The common denominator to organogenesis and morphogenesis, at cellular/tissue levels, is the harmonic interplay between cell multiplication, cell migration, cell differentiation, cell death, the generation of intercellular matrix and its resorption. All of this must take place at the 'right time'. Any departure from it may lead to injury, whether clinically detectable or not.