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Research at the Hubrecht Institute focuses on developmental biology and stem cells at the organismal, cellular, genetic, genomic and proteomic level. A variety of biological processes are being studied, mainly concerning the embryonic development of animals and the development and homeostasis of organs in adult animals. Developmental biologists are interested in the mechanism by which an organism grows from a single fertilized egg into a fully formed adult. This encompasses many areas, from basic (pre-)embryonic processes, such as the establishment of a body plan, to the specifics of organ growth in adult animals. Stem cell research is closely linked to developmental biology. Embryonic, fetal, adult and cancer stem cells as well as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) are all being studied at the Hubrecht Institute. Basic insight into development and into stem cells will provide insight into (human) disease, such as cancer.
The history of developmental biology dates back more than two thousand years to Aristotle, who first proposed that embryos were not simply “miniature” adults, but instead developed new features as they grew. Until the 19th century, developmental biology was primarily a descriptive science, based on numerous accounts of animal dissections. With the rise of the “cell theory” developmental biologists began to experimentally manipulate embryos, grafting tissues between individuals or ablating particular embryonic cells, for example. Such manipulations remain an important tool in developmental biology today. However, the “molecular revolution” that was propelled by the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953 has vastly increased the ability of biologists to manipulate living systems and today developmental biologists use a variety of molecular techniques to probe the processes that underlie development.
In order to understand basic biological processes, scientists use so-called “model organisms”, animals or plants that are easy to work with in a laboratory setting. Classical examples are the mouse and rat, which are used all over the world as a model for the biology of mammals (including humans). However, many biological processes are so central to life that they can be studied in far simpler organisms, such as the zebrafish (Danio rerio) or the nematode worm (Caenorhabditis elegans). All of these animals are used at the Hubrecht Institute to study a variety of biological areas. Moreover, stem cells are being studied for their capacity to divide or to specialize into specific tissue derivatives, like heart, brain, intestine or pancreas.
Work at the Hubrecht ranges across all fields of biology, from a genome-wide scale to structure-function analyses of individual proteins, form transcriptional control to the role of small RNAs and genome conformation, from the activation and inactivation of genes to the development of organs such as the heart, blood vessels, bone, the intestine and the brain. As well as shedding light on basic biological processes, an understanding of development may reveal ways to intervene therapeutically in case cells go awry in adult organisms. For example, cancers frequently arise when cells “forget” that they are in an adult organism and start to proliferate as if they were in an embryo. Similarly, by understanding how organs such as the heart develop, researchers hope to be able to repair organs that have suffered damage, e.g. during a heart attack. Embryonic stem cells, tissue stem cells and iPS cells hold a great potential for use as therapeutics. However, it is essential that we understand how to control their proliferation and differentiation before they can be used in the clinic.
Research results from work done at the Hubrecht Institute are published in scientific articles in international peer-reviewed journals. An overview of these publications can be found here.
