#EngineeringBiology

Happy 90th birthday to Dr. Herbert Boyer, a pioneer whose work helped launch modern biotechnology and laid the foundation for today’s synthetic biology!! 

Born and raised in Derry, Pennsylvania, Dr. Boyer began his scientific journey close to Pittsburgh. He earned a B.S. in biology and chemistry from Saint Vincent College in 1958 and later completed his graduate training in bacteriology at the University of Pittsburgh, receiving his Ph.D. in 1963. 

How do millions of cells work together to build a healthy human embryo? 

One of the greatest challenges in developmental biology is that the earliest stages of human development are difficult to study. heX-embryoids are laboratory-grown, stem cell-derived models that recreate key aspects of early human embryonic development, allowing scientists to investigate developmental processes that are otherwise inaccessible.