Golden Egg

To biologists chicken eggs offer more to crow about than just breakfast. Neatly encapsulated in an eggshell, once fertilised inside the hen by sperm from a rooster, they become a laboratory model of embryo development. For a growing chick the first concern is food and, like us, it gains sustenance from the yolk. Nutrients from the egg yellow are transported to the chick in blood vessels, which sprout independently from the yolk and from the chick. With a fluorescent dye each blood network becomes visible (pictured). The bright reversed question mark in the middle is the chick, and the lacy circle surrounding it, the yolk. At this stage, the two networks have joined up and the heart, already fully formed, starts pumping. This chick-in-an-egg model also provides clues on how human cancers acquire a blood supply to sustain them and help them spread.

Written by Julie Webb

Julie Webb

Writer

Julie began her career as a researcher in genetics. In 2000 she won a Wellcome Trust award for her work on a collaborative science drama, staged at the Edinburgh Festival. She now works as a freelance science writer and communicator.

• Vincent Pasque, University of Cambridge
• Wellcome Image Award Winner 2012
• Originally published under Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-ND)