Development of the Human Zygote

November 16, 1995
Hundreds of thousands of times a year a single-celled zygote, smaller than a grain of sand, transforms into an amazingly complex network of cells, a newborn infant. Through cellular differentiation and growth, this process is completed with precision time and time again, but very rarely a mistake in the 'blueprint' of growth and development does occur. Following is a description of how the pathways of this intricate web are followed and the mistakes which happen when they are not.
The impressive process of differentiation changes a single-cell into a complicated s…