Eric Davidson (1937–2015)

Abstract

Eric Davidson made major contributions to elucidating the mechanisms and logical structure of developmental gene regulatory networks. The Norman Chandler Professor of Cell Biology at the California Institute of Technology, Eric died of a heart attack on 1 September 2015 in Pasadena, California. Eric's death came just a few months after the publication of his latest book, Genomic Control Process: Development and Evolution, coauthored with his colleague Isabelle Peter. In this book, Eric and Isabelle continued to push forward his career-long project of applying rigorous experimental, modeling, and conceptual studies to understanding mechanisms responsible for the operation of gene regulatory networks, as well as how they had evolved through time.