Guojun Sheng is a Professor of the Department of Developmental Morphogenesis, International Research Center for Medical Sciences, Kumamoto University. He is broadly interested in form and function in biological systems. He was trained in Drosophila (fruit fly) developmental genetics (Ph.D. 1997, Rockefeller University) (Genes & Dev. 1997) and vertebrate molecular embryology (Columbia University and University College London) (Cell 2003). He started his independent research career at RIKEN CDB (now RIKEN BDR) (2004-2015) and continued at Kumamoto University (2016-), working on molecular regulation of gastrulation and mesoderm differentiation. He has made contributions to the fields of epithelial-mesenchymal transition, vertebrate early development and avian genomics and transcriptomics, highlighted by several well-received review articles (Nature Reviews Mol. Cell Biol. 2020; Science 2021). His ongoing research projects focus on omics-level developmental regulation of early avian development, on avian chorioallantoic membrane (an evolutionary prototype of mammalian placenta), and on modeling avian development ex vivo.