Movie: From Somites to Thalidomide, A Story from Jay Lash

About the Movie

This is an eight-minute movie that discusses somite formation in the chick embryo and the story of how Dr. Jay Lash was led from his work on somites and the kidney to his work on thalidomide, and his attempts to explain how thalidomide might be causing the terrible limb deformities that had been seen in human embryos exposed to this teratogen in utero. Lash’s discovery that the mesonephric kidney tissue interacts with the limb tissue suggested to him that thalidomide might be causing limb deformities by inhibiting the interaction between the mesonephric kidney and limb bud, and the experiments Lash conducted supported this hypothesis. Dr. Jay Lash’s work left us with an understanding of how thalidomide might be causing limb defects in human embryos and with the important reminder that any interruption to tissue interactions can have serious consequences.

Sample Slides from the Movie