Editing Morphogenesis (section)

==History==
{{further|Evolutionary developmental biology#History|Turing pattern}}

Some of the earliest ideas and mathematical descriptions on how physical processes and constraints affect biological growth, and hence [[natural patterns]] such as the [[spirals]] of [[phyllotaxis]], were written by [[D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson]] in his 1917 book ''[[On Growth and Form]]''<ref name=Thompson1917>{{cite book |year = 1917 |last = Thompson |first = D'Arcy Wentworth |title = On Growth and Form |url = https://archive.org/stream/ongrowthform1917thom#page/n7/mode/2up |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] }}</ref><ref name="Montell2008">{{citation|last=Montell|first=Denise J.|title=Morphogenetic Cell Movements: Diversity from Modular Mechanical Properties|date=5 December 2008|url=http://irb.chu-montpellier.fr/fr/PDF/DU2009-I/15-12-2008_Introduction_Publi_2.pdf|journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]]|volume=322|issue=5907|pages=1502–1505|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141128191935/http://irb.chu-montpellier.fr/fr/PDF/DU2009-I/15-12-2008_Introduction_Publi_2.pdf|bibcode=2008Sci...322.1502M|doi=10.1126/science.1164073|pmid=19056976|access-date=11 December 2012|archive-date=28 November 2014|author-link=Denise Montell|s2cid=27982230|url-status=dead}}</ref>{{NoteTag|Thompson's book is often cited. An abridged version, comprising 349 pages, remains in print and readily obtainable.<ref name=ThompsonAbridged>{{citation |year=2004 |orig-year=1917, abridged 1961 |last = Thompson |first = D'Arcy Wentworth |editor-last = Bonner |editor-first = John Tyler |title = On Growth and Form |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=7_F4OUJmLFcC&q=growth+form |location = Cambridge, England; New York, NY |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn = 978-0-521-43776-9 |access-date=11 December 2012 }}</ref>
An unabridged version, comprising 1116 pages, has also been published.<ref name=ThompsonUnabridged>{{citation |year = 1992 |last = Thompson |first = D'Arcy Wentworth |title = On Growth and Form: The Complete Revised Edition |location = New York, NY |publisher = Dover |isbn = 978-0-486-67135-2 }}</ref>}} and [[Alan Turing]] in his ''[[The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis]]'' (1952).<ref name=Turing>{{cite journal |last=Turing |first = A. M. |title = The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis |journal=[[Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B]] |volume=237 |pages=37–72 |year=1952 |doi = 10.1098/rstb.1952.0012 |issue = 641 |bibcode=1952RSPTB.237...37T |doi-access=free }}</ref> Where Thompson explained animal body shapes as being created by varying rates of growth in different directions, for instance to create the [[Gastropod shell|spiral shell]] of a [[snail]], Turing correctly predicted a mechanism of morphogenesis, the diffusion of two different chemical signals, one activating and one deactivating growth, to set up patterns of development, decades before the formation of such patterns was observed.<ref>{{cite journal |last1 = Hiscock |first1 = Tom W. |last2 = Megason |first2 = Sean G. |title = Orientation of Turing-like Patterns by Morphogen Gradients and Tissue Anisotropies |journal = Cell Systems |year = 2015 |volume=1 |issue=6 |pages = 408–416 |doi = 10.1016/j.cels.2015.12.001 |pmid=26771020 |url= |pmc = 4707970 }}</ref> The fuller understanding of the mechanisms involved in actual organisms required the discovery of the structure of [[DNA]] in 1953, and the development of [[molecular biology]] and [[biochemistry]].{{cn|date=March 2024}}