This week, we have Prof. John Beckett Wallingford to discuss the current landscape of federal science funding, and the importance of science in American industry and society. We set the scene with a reading of The Polio Vaccine, Chatham, Virginia, 1964, by Claudia Emerson. John Beckett Wallingford is a developmental biologist with three decades of experience.  He is the Mr. and Mrs. Robert P. Doherty Jr. Regents Chair in Molecular Biology and a Professor in the Dept. of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Texas at Austin.  Since 2003, his laboratory has sought to understand how form and function arise in embryos using advanced microscopy, systems biology, and biomechanics. Wallingford's research explores animal models and collaborates with human geneticists to understand human birth defects. He is writing a forthcoming book about embryos:  In the Beginning.