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The Heart of The Anatomical Record: Exploring the World of Cardiac Development, with Special Homage to Roger Markwald

As we write this essay, it is the beginning of the holiday season. The snow is just beginning to tickle the streets of New York while already having made their presence known to the towering peaks of the Wasatch Mountains surrounding Salt Lake City. Silver bells (yes, Virginia, they do exist!) can be heard echoing in the canyons of Manhattan with nearby chestnuts roasting on open fires while thousands of miles to the west, majestic moose start to prepare for the cold that will soon embrace the Utah sky. Children everywhere are starting to giggle, and become ever so excited, about the little treasures that they will get in the weeks ahead. The tree has just been lighted at Rockefeller Center with recent memories of Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons and floats still bringing ubiquitous smiles. From the heart of the “Big Apple” to the heartland of America, the season that warms one’s own heart is underway. This Special Issue is about “heart” in both the literal and figurative senses. Guest Edited by noted cardiovascular developmental biologist Andy Wessels of the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in incomparable Charleston (the authors of this essay found what is perhaps the only shellfish restaurant in the US with a special “kosher” section, we kid you not!) and by our own intrepid Associate Editor Katherine Yutzey of the Heart Institute at Cincinnati’s Children’s Medical Center, the issue reports the latest in developmental cardiovascular research (Fig. 1). This Special Issue is based on reports from the 2017 annual joint meeting of the Cardiovascular Developmental Biology Center (CDBC), the Department of Regenerative Medicine and Cell Biology (RMCB), and the SC COBRE for Developmentally Based Cardiovascular Diseases, all at MUSC. This year, however, was particularly special as these joint endeavors were held to honor the long beating “heart” of all those entities: Roger Markwald. Roger (our familiarity is too strong to go by last names here) has long been at the core of developmental heart research; this very journal; and our parent body, the American Association of Anatomists. He has been the heart of much that we do for a very long time. The following Commentary (Yutzey, 2019, this issue) and Introduction (Wessels, 2019, this issue) to this Special Issue will detail Roger’s robust contributions to cardiovascular and developmental biology in great depth; however, we could not miss the opportunity to give special homage ourselves. Roger Markwald is first and foremost a mentor parexcellance; indeed, a role he was born for. He has been, for example, a mentor to both authors of this Editorial. He mentored us as we grew under him as Associate Editors of this journal. As a past member of the Board of Directors and President of the American Association of Anatomists (AAA), Roger helped prepare J.L. for those roles when the latter came on the Board and subsequently took the gavel of President himself. Similarly, when K.A. followed Roger as Editor-in-Chief of The Anatomical Record, Roger’s words of wisdom, guidance, and support where always there. Roger, the mentor, was beside us as we took our shaky first steps in these oftendifficult positions, his words of encouragement and direction gently whispered in our ears. The confusing and often serpentine paths we both had to travel (you think our Congress can be difficult, try leading an AAA Board Meeting or negotiating publication schedules!) were made clearer and straighter by the sharing sage who had walked the walk before. How fortunate we both were! (Fig. 2). From his perches in the AAA, The Anatomical Record, and as Chair of Anatomy/Cell Biology at Medical College of Wisconsin and later Medical University of South Carolina, Roger was placed in leadership positions that allowed him to nurture both people and their science. He did this majestically, as is documented in this Special Issue. Roger also published frequently with his mentees/ colleagues in The Anatomical Record in areas of cardiac formation, general topics of developmental processes, and issues relating to the journal itself when he was the Editor-in-Chief. For example, studies on aspects of cardiac development included those tracing embryonic cardiac cushion formation (Hay, Markwald, and Sage, 1983; Bernanke and Markwald, 1984); on distribution of basement membrane antigen in early embryonic hearts (Kitten, Markwald, and Bolender, 1987); exploration of regions of the embryonic heart where endothelial cells transform into mesenchyme (Sinning, Krug, and Markwald, 1992); study of the morphogenesis of the sinus venosus, extracardiac mesenchyme, and atrium (Tasaka, Krug, and Markwald, 1996); immunohistochemical studies of atrial development with Andy Wessels (Wessels et al., 2000); conotruncal anomalies in the trisomy 16 mouse (Waller et al., 2000); on identification and THE ANATOMICAL RECORD 302:7–11 (2019)