Master Class: The Neural Crest and Placodes

Riding the crest and bringing students with you

Fundamentals are important

• Fascinating progenitor cell population?
• Impact on different tissues and body regions
• Etiology behind many congenital defects
• Potential role in repair

What are you trying to achieve?
Vowel analogy (Burns et al. 2003)

• Awareness
• Enjoyment
• Interest
• Opinion
• Understanding

Student engagement

Identifying the audience  

• Who are the students?
• What’s the level?
• Teaching environment
• Allotted time
• What do they really need to know? And why?

Providing a model for key developmental character

• Origins & induction
• Migration
• Pluripotency
• Interaction
• Transiency
• Instruction
• Plasticity

Variety of approaches  

• The historical journey
• The regional story
• The clinical aspect
• The role of evolution
• The controversy

Introductions are important  
Providing context

Make it a journey  

• Historical
• Experimental
• Controversial

Taking controversies further  
Dual origin of calvaria – a continuing debate?

Adding clinical relevance  
Abnormalities with a neural crest link
CHARGE syndrome
DiGeorge syndrome
Craniosynostosis
Hirschsprung’s disease
Waardenburg syndrome (1:40000)

• condition charaterized by sensorineural deafness, pigmental anomalies, other neural crest derived tissues
• classification into four types
• autosomal dominant trait
• WS1 - involvement of PAX 3 mutation

Summary

• What’s the goal?    
• The audience
• Setting the scene
• Match the approach
• Debate is good