Evolutionary Embryology Resurrected in Japan with a New Molecular Basis—Nori Satoh and the History of Ascidian Studies Born in Kyoto in the 20th Century

摘要

This paper was written in honor of Dr. Noriyuki Satoh who was awarded A.O. Kowalewsky medal, an international prize of the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists. We congratulate and thank this eminent zoologist for his outstanding scientific achievements, for his life's work in the discipline founded by A.O. Kowalewsky. Nori Satoh's scientific activity appears always to have been motivated by his drive to understand the dynamics of development, especially the dynamism associated with certain strictlymaintained 'time tables' in animal development. Nori Satoh, Professor of Department of Zoology, Kyoto University, Japan, and the winner of Kowalevsky Medal 2005, is now recognized as the founding father of the study of ascidian developmental biology atthe molecular level, and remains even to this day one of the acknowledged leaders in this field. Even now, he continues to work to open up new perspectives on evolutionary developmental genomics, through studies of his favorite animals, the ascidians.