Eric Davidson: Steps to a gene regulatory network for development

Abstract

Eric Harris Davidson was a unique and creative intellectual force who grappled with the diversity of developmental processes used by animal embryos and wrestled them into an intelligible set of principles, then spent his life translating these process elements into molecularly definable terms through the architecture of gene regulatory networks. He took speculative risks in his theoretical writing but ran a highly organized, rigorous experimental program that yielded an unprecedentedly full characterization of a developing organism. His writings created logical order and a framework for mechanism from the complex phenomena at the heart of advanced multicellular organism development. This is a reminiscence of intellectual currents in his work as observed by the author through the last 30-35 years of Davidson's life.

Fig. 1

Eric Davidson on fossil hunting trip in California desert, November 1994

Fig. 2

Eric Davidson on Nobska Beach, Woods Hole, MA, August 2009

Fig. 3

Eric Davidson near his home in Kinneloa Canyon, Pasadena, CA, February 2015