His own studies of the chick embryo culminated in the book "Interacting Systems in Development", which was published in six languages.
This seminal work would comprise the first blocks in the foundation for the modern medical industry of organ transplants and set the stage for stem cell research.
During his long career he was a professor at Indiana University, MIT, Johns Hopkins University, a Vice President of The National Academy of Sciences,[2] a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,[3] a member of the American Philosophical Society,[4] President of the Carnegie Institution of Washington (1978–1987), and President and Director of The Marine Biological Laboratory[5] in Woods Hole, Massachusetts where he and his wife Alma had remained in some capacity for over fifty years.
In 2000, on his 79th birthday, he attended the grand opening or "First Light" celebration of the Magellan Telescopes of The Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, which began construction while he was President of the Carnegie Institution.
[6] Ebert and his wife were killed in a traffic accident on Interstate 95 northeast of Baltimore, Maryland.