PhD Candidate Kate MacCord in Finland

CBS in Finland: PhD Candidate, Kate MacCord, delivers opening talk at invited symposium

On Wednesday, December 4^th, PhD Candidate and Assistant Project Coordinator, Kate MacCord, delivered the opening talk at a symposium in Helsinki, Finland. MacCord was invited as a speaker to the symposium, titled “The Enamel Knot at 100”, after spending a Fulbright year in the Jernvall Evolutionary Phenomics Laboratory at the University of Helsinki. The Symposium was created to honor both the 100^th anniversary of the discovery of the enamel knot, a cluster of cells that controls the growth and development of the tooth, and the 50^th birthday of Jukka Jernvall, the scientist responsible for establishing the enamel knot as the basis of a major developmental evolutionary paradigm.

MacCord led off the evening with her talk, “The Enamel Knot at 100”, from which the symposium derived its name. The other speakers included famed developmental biologist Scott Gilbert (Swarthmore College), and paleontologists John Hunter (Ohio State University) and David Polly (Indiana University). Together, the speakers provided insight into the history and breadth of enamel knot research as they recounted how research around this object spanned from developmental biology to paleontology, as well as the history and philosophy of science.