McClay Receives Lifetime Achievement Award

McClay Receives Lifetime Achievement Award

The Society for Developmental Biology has honored Prof. David McCLay with the SDB Lifetime Achievement Award for 2016, which recognizes both sustained research and mentoring. According to SDB e-news, "McClay is being recognized for his distinguished body of work uncovering the mechanisms underlying cell fate specification, patterning, and morphogenesis in the sea urchin embryo. His discovery that nuclear β-catenin specifies vegetal fates proved to be of great significance as it is critical for endoderm specification in numerous vertebrate and invertebrate species. His group established the role of Notch signaling in secondary mesenchyme induction and has been a leader in unpacking sea urchin gene regulatory networks." In addition, McClay has trained nearly 60 graduate students and postdocs during his career. He says, "I'm proud of all of them."