Homage to the enduring importance in biology of the Drosophila model system

The enduring importance of the Drosophila model: an appreciation of a classic paper on regeneration of imaginal discs. Matt Gibson celebrates the Society for Developmental Biology's 80th anniversary with a commentary on a 1971 paper from Gerold Schubiger. He writes, "my time in his lab left me with a unique appreciation for the classic imaginal disc studies he carried out together with a group of his esteemed colleagues. Performed in the decades prior to a brewing revolution in Drosophila developmental genetics, their body of work helped establish the logical foundation for a molecular-genetic approach to pattern formation that blossomed nearly 20 years later. As we now know, that golden era yielded profound insights into signaling pathways, growth regulation, morphogen gradients, and more." The Commentary and the original publication can be viewed or downloaded in PDF format online.