Lewis Wolpert - The development of pattern and form

D'Arcy Thompson wrote a wonderful book 'Growth and Form' in 1917 in which he tried to account for the variety of biological shapes in terms of physical principles. This approach has been greatly extended since his first edition, and has been very influential. The embryo develops complex forms. All the cells come from a single cell, the fertilised egg. During development the cells exert physical forces that bring about changes in form, and there are mechanisms for patterning the embryo basd on the cells knowing their position as in a coordinate system. All this occurs when the embryo is very small, and then programmed growth occurs.

Lewis Wolpert was educated at the University of Witwatersrand (BSc), Imperial College London, and at King's College London (PhD). He is presently Emeritus Professor of Biology as applied to Medicine in the Department of Anatomy and developmental biology at University College London.

He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1980 and awarded the CBE in 1990. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999.

He is a Vice-President of the British Humanist Association

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