Embryo

Alfonso Martinez Arias PhD is a world-leading developmental biologist. He is currently ICREA Research Professor in the Department of Medicine and Life Sciences of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, in Barcelona, Spain. Prior to that, he was Professor of Developmental Mechanics at the University of Cambridge. For the last twenty years his research has focused on using embryonic stem cells (ESCs) to explore their potential to build embryos. Martinez Arias is regularly quoted and covered as a scientist at the forefront of developmental biology and human embryology, and delivers keynote speeches at conferences around the world. He is the author of The Master Builder.

"Through historical vignettes, scientific explanations, and consideration of social and ethical issues, developmental biologist Martinez Arias explains in this valuable and easily accessible book that becoming a human being requires gradual emergence through developmental stages and does not occur at one particular moment. Pointing with rich insight to new exciting work including his own on stem cells and gastruloids, he wisely calls for thoughtful regulation of embryo studies 'to ensure that high research standards go hand in hand with ethical discourse.'" --Jane Maienschein, University Professor and Director of the Center for Biology and Society at Arizona State University and author of Whose View of Life? and Embryos Under the Microscope, among others "For over four decades, Alfonso Martinez-Arias has been one of our leading researchers on the science of embryos, the tiny cluster of cells that hold the beginnings of us all. In Embryo, he shows how our bodies are not engineered blueprints but living testaments to hundreds of millions of years of cellular tinkering. This book is a profound scientific exploration that reveals our embryonic development is not a single event, but a magnificent act of becoming that we share with the rest of the animal world." --Neil Shubin, Professor at the University of Chicago and bestselling author of Ends of the Earth and Your Inner Fish among others