An Unexpected Journey: From Experimentalist to the Human Developmental Biology Resource

Abstract

The Human Developmental Biology Resource has enabled human development research and the understanding of congenital disease for over 20 years. I was involved in its inception in 1999 and ultimately became the Resource’s co-Director for nearly 15 years. How did my scientific journey lead me to this position? I started my career as a research scientist in 1980, following the traditional pattern of Ph.D. then post-doctoral positions, initially studying the human X chromosome and searching for X-linked disease genes. By the mid-1990s, characterising and understanding gene expression patterns during human development was an important part of my work, partly because my searches for disease genes weren’t fruitful and partly because of my interest in embryology. At the time, studying human embryonic tissues was an unusual thing to do: it was expected that animal models would provide the important answers. My colleagues and I, however, thought that investigating human development directly could provide key insights into human congenital disease. The difficulty was that human embryonic tissues required for this research are intrinsically challenging to obtain: raising ethical, practical and experimental issues. Thus, as my career progressed, I became more involved in establishing the human tissue bank which in 1999 became the Human Developmental Biology Resource (www.hdbr.org): a significant international resource that has been expanding and innovating for more than twenty years. Personal circumstances and funding possibilities contributed to the decisions leading me to this fundamental change in role: from making scientific discoveries to enabling researchers to carry out ground-breaking work which otherwise would have been difficult or impossible for them. Now at the end of my career, I see very clearly how valuable and how vital a part of scientific endeavour are service organisations which facilitate research by providing much needed resources and I’m proud of my contributions to HDBR.