title: Perspective.
abstract: I am a developmental biologist, but I started off as a civil engineer. I did some research on soil mechanics but decided to change to biology. A friend changed my life when he told me about the mechanics of cell division, on which I did my PhD at Kings College. I then worked on the morphogenesis of the sea urchin embryo and became interested in how embryos are patterned, and I proposed positional information as a basic mechanism. I was a professor at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, where we concentrated on how the chick limb developed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom; email: profwolpert@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Lewis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wolpert
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002645:Chickens / Q000254:growth & development; D015509:Developmental Biology / Q000379:methods; D009024:Morphogenesis / Q000502:physiology*; D012617:Sea Urchins / Q000196:embryology
keywords: Autobiography; cleavage; development; embryo; limb; positional information; regeneration