Int. J. Dev. Biol. 61: 115 - 120 (2017)

https://doi.org/10.1387/ijdb.170050df

Vol 61, Issue 3-4-5

Special Issue: Developmental Biology in Israel

A “Brief History” of Developmental Biology in Israel

Editorial | Published: 2 June 2017

Dalit Sela-Donenfeld and Dale Frank

¹Department of Biochemistry, The Rappaport Family Institute for Research in the Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa and ²Koret School of Veterinary Medicine, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel

Abstract

While the history of developmental biology in Israel is relatively short, its impact is far-reaching, so we wanted to present a concise perspective on the Israeli developmental biology community, past-present-future. This community has undergone a wonderful, nearly exponential growth over the last three decades. How exactly did this happen? There are approximately fifty research groups that focus on developmental biology questions in Israel today that are members of the Israel Society of Developmental Biology (IsSDB; http://issdb.org/). The community has representative groups in a plethora of model systems, such as Nematostella, C. elegans, Drosophila, sea urchin, ascidians, zebrafish, Xenopus, chick and mouse, as well as plants, representing all the major universities and their branches, which include Bar-Ilan University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The University of Haifa, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Keywords

Developmental Biology, Israel