Embryo's cell stampede

Science | Health - Jonathan Wood | 23 Feb 11. As an embryo grows towards its final adult form, the initial fertilised egg cell must divide many times over into cells that will become specialised and form the many different tissues and organs of the body. This process of embryo development is a dynamic one, as this time-lapse video of microscope images illustrates. Cells don't just sense where they are in the growing embryo and develop into the appropriate tissue. They move around and migrate to where they need to be. Dr Shankar Srinivas and colleagues at Oxford University's Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics are working to understand the molecular signals that govern these cell migrations in the early embryo. After all, if this development is disrupted, the embryo may not be viable or it could lead to birth abnormalities.