Duncan Davidson is a scientist at the Medical Research Council Human Genetics Unit, Edinburgh. He received his B.Sc. in Developmental Genetics in 1973 and his Ph.D. in 1978, both from the University of Edinburgh. His postgraduate work was done with Tom Elsdale at the HGU, studying somitogenesis in the frog and fish and the formation of feather patterns in chick skin. He became interested in the close relation between spatial and temporal processes in pattern formation and showed that the regular pattern of feathers in the skin is the result of a local spacing mechanism combined with a mechanism that regulates the timing of feather development. In the 1980s his interest in the regulation of pattern forming processes, and a frustration with their genetic inaccessibility in vertebrate embryos, led him to work with Bob Hill at the HGU investigating homeobox-containing genes in the mouse. This work included description of msx genes and the first description of segment-specific expression of a Hox gene in the mouse. The need to integrate spatio-temporal information about expression and functions of many different genes led Duncan to join forces with Richard Baldock, a computer scientist at the HGU, to develop frameworks for databases of gene function at the tissue and organ levels. Over the past 10 years this collaboration has resulted in the EMAP atlas of mouse development and the public EMAGE database of spatially mapped gene expression patterns in the mouse embryo that went online in 2002. In 2002, James Sharpe in Duncan's group devised an imaging method, optical projection tomography (OPT), to capture 3D expression data from whole embryos. Duncan leads the data-coordination effort in several international projects on mouse development. He is now beginning to return to developmental biology, focussing on kidney development.