Developmental biology—the study of the processes by which cells, tissues, and organisms develop and change over time—has entered a new golden age. After the molecular genetics revolution in the 80s and 90s and the diversification of the field in the early 21st century, we have entered a phase when powerful technologies provide new approaches and open unexplored avenues. Progress in the field has been accelerated by advances in genomics, imaging, engineering, and computational biology and by emerging model systems ranging from tardigrades to organoids. We summarize how revolutionary technologies have led to remarkable progress in understanding animal development. We describe how classic questions in gene regulation, pattern formation, morphogenesis, organogenesis, and stem cell biology are being revisited. We discuss the connections of development with evolution, self-organization, metabolism, time, and ecology. We speculate how developmental biology might evolve in an era of synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and human engineering.

发育生物学——研究细胞、组织和生物体随时间发育和变化的过程——已经进入了一个新的黄金时代。经过 80 年代和 90 年代的分子遗传学革命以及 21 世纪初该领域的多元化，我们已经进入了一个强大的技术提供新方法并开辟未探索途径的阶段。基因组学、成像、工程学和计算生物学的进步以及从缓步动物到类器官等新兴模型系统加速了该领域的进展。我们总结了革命性技术如何在理解动物发育方面取得了显着进展。我们描述了如何重新审视基因调控、模式形成、形态发生、器官发生和干细胞生物学中的经典问题。我们讨论发展与进化、自组织、新陈代谢、时间和生态的联系。我们推测发育生物学在合成生物学、人工智能和人体工程学时代将如何发展。