Optional textbook: Human Embryology and Developmental Biology, by Bruce M. Carlson. Any edition is OK.

The Biology 441 lab is NOT required for students taking the lecture course. It is a separate 1-hour course.
Labs will begin on January 18-19. lab syllabus

exams and grading

Lecture notes, videos, review questions, and other material needed for exams will be posted on this web site throughout the semester.
Please check it frequently for updates.

a collection of short videos that have been shown during lectures

video recordings of the lectures in 2015

links to web pages for the preceding ten years, including sample exam questions: "review questions"

1) Wed. Jan 11	Mammal Embryology in Contrast with Sea Urchin Embryology lecture notes
2) Friday Jan 13	Subdivision of Vertebrate Embryos Into Ectoderm, Mesoderm & Endoderm lecture notes
Monday Jan 16	******* Holiday in Honor of Martin Luther King Jr. ********
3) Wednesday Jan 18	Embryology of Teleost Fish. Why are zebra-fish good "model organisms? lecture notes
4) Friday Jan 20	Embryology of Amphibians (Salamanders & Frogs). Advantages for Experiments lecture notes
5) Monday Jan 23	Embryonic Development of Birds, Reptiles & Mammals. Why so similar? lecture notes
6) Wednesday Jan 25	Experimental Embryology, Regulation, Fate maps, In Situ Labeling lecture notes some vocabulary to review illustrations shown in class You should be able to tell what animal each of these figures is from, and to label or identify specific parts of them. One or more of these may appear on a future exam.
7) Friday Jan 27	Experimental Embryology, continued (see notes for Wednesday) A video of plutei (larvae of sea urchins) was shown before the lecture, accompanied by a recording of the Blue Danube waltz,by Johann Strauss Jr. During the lecture, a video was shown of slugs of the cellular slime mold Dictyostelium developing stalks and fruiting bodies, to the music of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. This illustrated an extreme example of developmental regulation. There is a still picture from this video in the lecture notes.
8) Monday Jan 30	Cell Sorting and Discovery of Selective Adhesion Proteins lecture notes preparing for the first hour exam
9) Wednesday Feb 1	Cell Sorting, continued lecture notes
10) Friday Feb 3	Review for first examination review questions (posted Tuesday 10:15 pm)
11) Monday Feb 6	First Examination
12) Wednesday Feb 8	Easy Mathematics about Surface Curvatures, Tensions and Pressures lecture notes video (with narration), showing a simple computer program to graph curvature
13) Friday Feb 10	How Do Physical Forces Cause the Shapes of Anatomical Structures? (lecture notes continued from February 8th) Animations shown at the beginning of the lecture: budding of hydra by rearrangement of cells blood vessels forming and changing in a rabbit ear blood vessels in a tadpole tail
14) Monday Feb 13	Symmetries of Causes Control Symmetries of Anatomical Shapes lecture notes
15) Wednesday Feb 15	Reaction-Diffusion Systems: How Instabilities Create Geometric Patterns lecture notes some thought questions about curvature and symmetry
	some web links to look at about various topics in embryology added Thursday Feb 16 at 10:45 am; revised Friday Feb 17 at 12:45 pm
16) Friday Feb 17	Fractals and Branching Structures. lecture notes Somites and the Notochord. This topic will be continued on Monday; lecture notes will be posted then. Some video links from the web. Please look at the ones on somites. Optional reading that you might find interesting (posted Sunday at 3 pm) This is a recent journal issue entirely on the subject of development of left-right asymmetry. You should be able to access this by clicking on the link and entering your onyen and password.
17) Monday Feb 20	Pattern Formation; then Somites and Other Structures from Mesoderm, continued lecture notes on patterns lecture notes on mesoderm links to the videos shown in class
18) Wednesday Feb 22	Review for Second Examination review questions Please note: You are also responsible for the figures and illustrations posted on the course web pages, from January 30th (which was not covered on the first hour exam) through February 20th. The exam may include one or more pictures on which you will need to label something, identify something, or say what is significant. The question list was edited at 4:10 pm on Tuesday. Some hints were added, and some questions that dealt with material that hasn't been fully covered yet were flagged with **. As before, questions marked with an * are more difficult and not many will be asked.
19) Friday Feb 24	Second Examination
20) Monday Feb 27	Ovaries and Testis; Primordial Germ Cells and Gamete Formation; Heart. See notes on mesoderm from February 20 - the picture of primordial germ cells has been added. Pascal program simulating the Liesegang reaction, shown at the beginning of the lecture
21) Wednesday Mar 1	Cartilage and Bone lecture notes
22) Friday Mar 3	Ectoderm lecture notes notes on retino-tectal projections were added March 8, 7:45 am
23) Monday Mar 6	Chemotaxis, and more on ectoderm lecture notes and video links on chemotaxis This page was revised on April 3. New illustrations were added. video of temporal chemotaxis in ciliates video of haptotaxis in tissue culture cells Two videos of computer simulations of mechanism of chemotaxis. These were shown in class with the sound turned off, but please watch them again and listen to the recorded audio. first video: demonstration of behavioral rules that can produce the effects of chemotaxis second video: user's choice of different rules
24) Wednesday Mar 8	Retino-Tectal Projections (continuation of Ectoderm) see lecture notes from March 3
25) Friday Mar 10	Endoderm lecture notes
	March 13-17 spring break
26) Monday Mar 20	Development of higher plants, in contrast to animals lecture notes [updated Tuesday 11 am]
27) Wednesday Mar 22	Bioassays; lecture notes Sex Determination; lecture notes
28) Friday Mar 24	Limb buds; lecture notes
29) Monday Mar 27	Limb buds, continued
30) Wednesday Mar 29	Review for third examination first set of review questions second set of review questions third set of review questions
31) Friday Mar 31	Third Examination
32) Monday Apr 3	Regeneration, Especially of Salamander Limbs; lecture notes
33) Wednesday Apr 5	Regeneration, continued; lecture notes; Atherosclerosis; lecture notes
34) Friday Apr 7	Metamorphosis; lecture notes
35) Monday Apr 10	Immunology, Allergies, and Autoimmune Diseases in Relation to Embryology lecture notes These notes were revised April 12 at 1:30 pm.
36) Wednesday Apr 12	Immunology, continued
Friday April 14	******* Holiday ********
37) Monday Apr 17	Locomotion of Amoebae and Tissue Cells lecture notes
38) Wednesday Apr 19	Cell Locomotion and Traction, continued See lecture notes from April 17, which were modified on April 19 at 2:00 PM.
39) Friday Apr 21	Cancer as Disruption in Embryological Mechanisms; lecture notes
40) Monday Apr 24	Aging lecture notes
41) Wednesday Apr 26	Guest lecture by teaching assistant John Noto: Embryonic Development in Fruit Flies downloadable PowerPoint file
42) Friday Apr 28	Evo-Devo: lecture notes Course Review: lecture notes
	Dr. Harris will be in his office or in the lecture room all day on Wednesday, May 3, beginning at 9:00, for exam review and questions. Final exam format and scope first set of review questions (on topics since the last exam) second set third set
	FINAL EXAM: Monday, May 8, 8:00 am