Integrating self-organization theory into an advanced course on morphogenesis at Moscow State University.

A lecture course on morphogenesis for fourth-year Moscow State University Specialist Diploma students specializing in embryology is described. The main goal of the course is to give the students an extensive theoretical background based on the tenets of the modern theory of Self-Organization and to show them how important this theory is for the proper understanding of developmental events. The corresponding mathematics are bound as tightly as possible to the actual morphogenetic processes. All of the lectures take the format of an active dialogue between the students and a tutor.