A career in science is a journey of wonder and discovery. To succeed in science requires curiosity, perseverance, a good dose of luck, and wise guidance from those who have taken the journey ahead of you. We also need to use our science skills to contribute to public debate on complex issues of the day. Being honored by the 2009 American Society for Cell Biology Women in Cell Biology (WICB) Senior Award has provided me with an opportunity to look back and examine the importance of mentorship and role models, both female and male, in my career. I am fundamentally a basic biologist, driven by my curiosity about how the world works. The question that has fascinated me for over 30 years is one that we can all relate to: How is it that complex, rational organisms such as ourselves can arise from a single cell, the size of a speck of dust? Over the years my lab colleagues and I have explored many aspects of that question, using mice as our model system, and we've discovered more and more about the hierarchy of cell decisions that begins when sperm hits egg. Along the way we have contributed to the development of techniques for manipulating the mouse genome, helped identify key signaling pathways that control blood vessel development, and isolated novel stem cells from the mouse blastocyst. But I always return to the fundamental questions of lineage development in the early embryo, attacking the problem with new tools as they become available.
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