A snail tale and the chicken embryo

Some 25 years ago, a clone was identified that contained the chicken Slug sequences (now called Snail2 ). How could we anticipate at that time how much the chick embryo would help us to understand the ins and outs of cell migration during development and in disease? Indeed, the chick embryo helped us identify Snail2 as the first transcription factor that could induce the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), key for the migration of embryonic and cancer cells.The work in my laboratory is currently supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BFU2008-01042) and the European Research Council (ERC AdG 322694), and by the Spanish Research Agency (AEI), through the “Severo Ochoa” Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2103-0317) to the Instituto de Neurociencias.Peer reviewe