Le Douarin Nicole M
Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, INSERM, CNRS, Institut de la Vision, Paris, France.
Int J Dev Biol. 2018;62(1-2-3):19-33. doi: 10.1387/ijdb.170287NL.
My career in research was a second thought. I first (during 8 years) worked as a secondary school teacher and after 4-5 years, during which my two daughters were born, I found a way to escape from what was to be a lifetime job. For two years, my initiation to research was limited to the free time left by my teaching duties. This period of time was a bit "complicated" but not enough to prevent me to realize that research was really what I wanted to do for the rest of my life… And this was when I became acquainted with the chick embryo. This companionship later became extended to another representative of the avian world: the quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica). I recall in the following lines a survey of scientific stories that came out from my association with these precious animals, ... not without a feeling of gratitude.
我从事研究工作是后来才有的想法。我最初（长达8年）是一名中学教师，在我的两个女儿出生后的4至5年里，我找到了一种方法，摆脱了原本可能会是终身从事的工作。有两年时间，我对研究的涉足仅限于教学工作之余的空闲时间。这段时间有点“复杂”，但还不至于让我无法意识到研究才是我余生真正想做的事情……就在那时，我结识了鸡胚。后来，这种缘分又扩展到了鸟类世界的另一个代表：鹌鹑（日本鹌鹑）。在接下来的文字中，我回忆起一系列因与这些珍贵动物结缘而产生的科学故事，……心中满是感激之情。
