The Origin of Vertebrates Marc W. Kirschner, Jan. 2008 Harvard Medical School/Systems Biology

Lecture Overview In Part 3: How chordates got their chord, I discuss how the overall body plan of vertebrates, arose from the invertebrates based on knowledge of the commonalities in their developmental mechanisms. Here again, the acorn worm, offers the key comparison, being close enough to us to share some recognizable features, but far enough away to indicate the direction from whence we came.

Part 3: How Chordates Got Their Chord (19:09) Click image above to start seminar in 320x240 format Click here to view in larger 640x480 format*   QuickTime 7 Required    *640x480 System Requirements (there may be a few seconds delay before seminars start) Downloads in alternative formats: (To Save, Right Click a link below and select "Save Target/Link As") QuickTime (37mb)     MP4 (221mb)     iPod/iPhone Video (221mb) PowerPoint Slides 3/page (288kb)     Format Descriptions Download Accelerator/Resume Broken Downloads Software

Part 1: The Origin of the Vertebrate Nervous System: The Hemichordate Perspective (33:29)   Part 2: Telling the Back from the Front or What the Chordates Invented (27:47) Speaker Bio    Related Articles