Suzanne Eaton: The beautiful logic of development

D uring development, cells tune their gene expression and determine their position within a growing tissue by referencing the local concentration of certain secreted proteins called morphogens. Morphogens are often present in a concentration gradient across tissues, but, until fairly recently, it wasn't clear how such gradients are established or how morphogens reach their target cells. Suzanne Eaton has accumulated an important body of research exploring how morphogens direct global tissue patterning (1–3). Recently, she's begun looking at how mechanical interactions with neighboring cells and tissues dictate tissue shape and cellular orientation within tissues (4). And, just as morphogen and mechanical signals converge to drive tissue development, Eaton is also seeing her research fl ow in new directions (5), as we learned when we called her recently at her lab at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany. Did you have role models, growing up? My father was always a real inspiration to me. He was an electrical engineer, and he taught for a little while at UC Berkeley after he got his PhD, before being recruited to the research division at IBM. He was interested in everything, and he was a great scientist. My other role model… it's embarrassing, but I would say that was Mr. Spock from Star Trek. I think my favorite thing that Spock ever said was in response to another officer , who said he " felt " something was wrong. The offi cer said, " It was just an emotional feeling, Mr. Spock. I don't expect you to understand it. " And Spock said, " I note it, without understanding it. " The lesson I drew from that is that one can take a rational approach to incomprehensible things. If you accept them, then you can think about what they might mean. Besides Spock's words, what have you carried with you into adulthood? I started playing the piano when I was eight, and I had lessons all through university. I thought of making a career of it, but of course that's a really, really diffi cult life. But I love playing the piano. My husband plays the fl ute, so we play together, and sometimes I play with other people, too. My sons also both love music—one plays piano, and the other plays guitar. Did you take a logical approach to your career? Actually, early on I was …