The "Gastrulation Dance" (Mary Benac Madabhushi, HMS '97)

Dear Dr. B,

I was in a Biology course with you at BYU where you taught about gastrulation in Xenopus embryos and I will always remember your explanation. You told us to imagine that the auditorium we were sitting in was a huge frog embryo, we were on the inside and the door at the front was the blastopore lip. You then danced from one end to the other trying to explain how the cells were all moving towards that door. I spent 7 years doing a phD on mouse gastrulation and had the hardest time trying to explain the movement of cells during gastrulation during my presentations. I ended up collaborating with my sister on an animation to help explain it, but your innovative ideas to get us engaged and thinking about gastrulation during those undergrad courses always float back into my mind.

I also had the opportunity to go to Monterey with you for the 1997 Spring term. I have so many happy memories from those six weeks on the shore. The most important thing I learned that would serve me professionally was that the longer you sit, stare, and draw, the more you see under the microscope.  I have coached many others at the microscope and urged them to spend a little longer at it, knowing that the patience pays off. My time with you was the first exposure to developmental biology, though at the time I knew it as embryology. I remember thinking that it was unfortunate that this field was a closed book, it seemed that development had been described already and that scientists were now addressing other aspects of biology. I was delighted to find the field of developmental genetics when I started as a masters student at NYU. I realized that one could still do embryology, but with more powerful tools than only a microscope.

My favorite activity at Hopkins was doing sea urchin fertilization and tracking the cleavage stages through the earliest stages of development. After having succeeded at that in Monterey I thought I could repeat the experiment with my nieces and nephews at a Florida beach. I spent $70 on gravid sea urchins at a local supply center and tried to do some in vitro fertilization on my own. We were never able to identify the fertilized eggs or early cleavage stages though we sure had a lot of fun trying!

I remember you bringing in a waffle iron and making girl pancakes and boy pancakes, taking us to eat at the Fishwife restaurant in Asilomar, reading to us from your own illustrated childrens book, and of course your beautiful colorful chalkboard illustrations. I wish I had taken pictures of each of those chalkboard masterpieces! I've now thrown out all my course notes from many years of undergraduate and graduate work, but one. I saved all my notes and drawings from that spring term in Monterey and I love to leaf through them.

Here's an animation I created to explain gastrulation in a mouse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XV9c-97Wc4&feature=youtu.be

And here is a link to some photos I took during my time in Monterey:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/melb/sets/72157626922458802/

Thank you for opening my eyes to a beautiful world and for your wonderful example of a dedicated inspiring teacher.

Sincerely,

Mary (Benac) Madabhushi

(Mary Benac Madabhushi completed a PhD in mouse gastrulation at Cornell University in 2010, and is currently a preceptor at Harvard.  She will teach courses in Developmental Biology and Genetics at the Harvard extension school starting Fall 2011).