It is a well known fact that the fertilized egg of all amniotes (reptiles, birds and mammals) establishes both the embryo and the embryo's "extraembryonic" supporting tissues, e.g. the amnion, yolk sac and chorio-allantoic placenta, but most current scientific effort is spent looking at either of the two categories separately. The goal of this EMBO Workshop is to underscore the importance of a holistic approach to early development, highlighting interactive relationships between embryonic and extraembryonic tissues and the roles these interactions play in ensuring proper development in utero and into post-birth.

List of topics:

• Comparative strategies for amniote development, including marsupial mammals and the fossil record
• Hox patterning genes that unite embryonic/extraembryonic components into a single holistic entity
• Ploidy, imprinting, and epigenetics of extraembryonic and embryonic tissues; fetal-maternal conflict
• The fetal-umbilical connection – at least half of all extraembryonic umbilical defects are associated with embryonic abnormalities, the developmental relationship between the umbilicus and embryo is obscure
• Role of environment on extraembryonic tissues, leading in turn to embryonic defects and adult-onset disease
• Inductive mechanisms of visceral endoderm on embryonic development
• Amniote strategies for creating the germ line
• The body axis
• Imaging the post-implantation conceptus