Int. J. Dev. Biol. 62: 19 - 33 (2018)
Special Issue: The Chick Embryo Model System
A life in Science with the avian embryo
Special Contribution | Published: 19 January 2018
Abstract
My career in research was a second thought. I first (during 8 years) worked as a secondary school teacher and after 4-5 years, during which my two daughters were born, I found a way to escape from what was to be a lifetime job. For two years, my initiation to research was limited to the free time left by my teaching duties. This period of time was a bit “complicated” but not enough to prevent me to realize that research was really what I wanted to do for the rest of my life… And this was when I became acquainted with the chick embryo. This companionship later became extended to another representative of the avian world: the quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica). I recall in the following lines a survey of scientific stories that came out from my association with these precious animals, ... not without a feeling of gratitude.
Keywords
quail-chick chimera, cell marking technique, neural crest, neural stem cell, tolerance to self