About

Hello!

Who are you?
Bold question. I will answer in kind. I am

Will Towler, Ph.D.

AKA Dr. Will.
I am a biomedical scientist and science writer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I am an alum of Furman University, having earned my B.Sc. in Biology there in 2011 and an alum of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, having earned my Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology there in 2019 following my defense of my dissertation, “Regulation of Bone and Joint Morphogenesis by ACVR1.” I spent the bulk of my time at UPenn embedded in the McKay Center for Orthopaedic Research, specifically the Center for Research in FOP and Related Disorders. I am also a martial artist, gardener, gamer, and guinea pig foster dad.

What is it you would say that you… do here?
Write about science and about writing about science. I have extensive experience with end-to-end scientific publications and specialties in rare disease, developmental biology, and musculoskeletal biology, and I pride myself on being able to become rapidly conversant in a vast breadth of topics and thus able to write competently about them as needed. I even wrote a guide on how to do that in my blog. I like bringing science to as many people as I can, to empower them to think creatively and carefully each in proper measure.

Why is developmental biology the best?
My friend, all biology is developmental biology. How does a cell know what to become? How does a tissue assert its function? How does an organ take its shape? How do the ways we are nurtured affect the ways we express our nature?
Less magniloquently, developmental biology considers an organism as all of its dimensions through space and time. Though we risk being dismissed as generalists, we must know above all that a biological question cannot be isolated from its context. My particular fascination is with the emergence of skeletal geometry from a seemingly formless cell mass, and to know that, I must know genetic programs, cell movement, cell-cell signaling, mechano-sensing, structural biology, evolutionary biology, and more, and that’s not even mentioning muscles and tendons. When I experience decision paralysis, I often say that my thoughts “kaleidoscope” into myriad intersecting paths and possibilities, but what a developmental biologist does is dive into and navigate that kaleidoscope, then resurface and tell you what it is bones do.

So what’s that icon all about?
You might have noticed the little dragon in the corner of the screen. That fella is my constant reminder that my goal is to bring fantasies to life. I read an awful lot of The Dragons of Pern by Anne McCaffrey and Animorphs by K. A. Applegate growing up and those bolstered my burgeoning belief – with plenty of evidence from the real world – that science beautifully transforms our understanding of what it means to live as a person on this Earth. For a time, I thought that meant sitting at a lab bench scratching my head until a dragon hatched in front of me (among other inventions like floppy pandas – you’ll have to ask my friend Mimmy about that one). Though that’s still on the table for anyone who would like to support similar efforts, the valuable skill I didn’t realize I was developing was how to meet people where they are and communicate brilliant, perspective-shifting ideas without alienating the listener or sacrificing authenticity. Your idea is awesome. Let’s tell everyone about it. Let’s take the “fi” out of “sci-fi.”