Re-enchanting organizer cells through lexical changes
June 30
Recent bibliometric surveys suggest that organizer cells have not retained their once-heroic status in developmental biology. We begin by tracing the conceptual genealogy of the “organizer cell,” with particular attention to the evolving semantics of closely associated terms in contemporary morphogenetic discourse. These linguistic drifts reveal that, although not exclusively sufficient, investigation of organizer cells remains pivotal to the ongoing paradigm shift within regenerative medicine, as our analysis demonstrates. Accordingly, in the latter section of this paper, we show that the connotations of three foundational words linked to organizer cells—“symmetry,” “induction,” and “competence”—are now in flux.
Translated from Re-enchanting mirror neurons through lexical changes