My Life as a Scientist: From RNA Polymerase to the Evolution of Beauty

Trained as a biochemist and molecular biologist, in 1975, I began to work on Drosophila maternal mutants with the aim to isolate morphogens. As group leaders at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, Eric Wieschaus and I discovered 120 genes that control embryonic development. Many of them turned out to be members of important developmental pathways conserved throughout the animal phyla. This work was honored with the Nobel Prize in 1995. Genetic analysis of the maternal contribution to embryogenesis led to the first identification of a morphogenetic gradient. The transcription factor Bicoid determines position along the Drosophila anteroposterior axis in a concentration-dependent manner. To identify genes specific to vertebrate development, my lab undertook a large-scale screen for mutants in the small zebrafish Danio rerio, establishing it as a powerful vertebrate model system. The last projects in my lab concerned the formation and evolution of the color pattern of zebrafish and related species.