Welcome to the Node: the community site for and by developmental and stem cell biologists, where you can read the latest news, hear stories from the bench and beyond, check out our jobs and events pages and interact with colleagues from around the world. And you can easily make your contribution: anyone can post on the Node after creating an account. The Node is run by the journal Development and its publisher, The Company of Biologists.
This infographic details some of our key stats (last updated in January 2025; click to expand):
Below you’ll find an introduction to what you can expect to read on the Node and how you can get involved. If you still have questions after reading this page, please visit our help page or contact us. You can also check out an article we wrote about the Node for a special issue of Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology devoted to science communication.
- Content on the Node
- Ways you can participate
- Why ‘the Node’?
- Keeping up with the Node
- Who is behind the Node?
- Our header images
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Content on the Node
On the Node you will be able to find a variety of content with a strong developmental and stem cell biology focus:
- Blog posts. This could be anything from a ‘behind the paper’ research story to an news announcement, an interview to a piece on model organisms, written by researchers across the world.
- Events. Our events calendar has a list of upcoming meetings which you can contribute to.
- Jobs. Our jobs board is increasingly popular and features positions from across the world, from a PhD scholarship to a Head of Department.
- Resources. Our dedicated Resources page contains useful information from advocacy and outreach to research databases and tools.
- The Node Network. Our global database of developmental biology and stem cell researchers, searchable by aspects of diversity as well as scientific information. Browse or become a member to put your name out there.
- Development presents… Updates and recorded talks from Development’s monthly webinar series
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Participating on the Node
They are many ways you can get involved on the Node:
- Post: The Node is a community blog – this means that anyone can write for the Node. You just need to register. First time blogging? Our Community Manager can help at any stage, from writing an outline to editing the final draft. Want to contribute but don’t know what to write about? Read our ‘Writing ideas’ post.
- Comment: You can give your opinion about a post, ask the author a question or join a discussion, by adding a comment at the bottom of a post. You don’t need to register to comment and you can leave comments anonymously.
- Rate posts and comments: Let authors and commenters know you like what they have to say with a thumbs up.
- Drop us an email: Is there anything you would like to see on the Node? Do you have any feedback? Contact the Node team.
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Why ‘the Node’?
From a technical perspective, a node is simply a connection point, while developmental and stem cell biologists know the node as an important group of cells that instruct and organise the activity of others in the early embryo. So it’s the perfect name for a connection point for those working in developmental and stem cell biology! You can download the Node logo here if you want to link to us.
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Keeping up with the Node
There many ways you can keep up with the Node:
- Follow us on X: Every new post on the Node is posted on X, and we also share other interesting content from around the internet, often using the #devbio hashtag. Follow us on @the_Node
- Like us on Facebook: The Node also has a Facebook page and you can like us to see new Node content on your news feed.
- Email alerts: You can sign up to receive a weekly email listing new Node content. Subscribe to the mailing list by first registering an account with the Node, and then head over to your profile page to update your email preferences.
- RSS feed: You can also keep up with new content via our RSS feeds.
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Who is behind the Node?
The Node was launched in June 2010 by Development, a leading research journal in the field of developmental biology, and its publisher, The Company of Biologists, as a non-commercial information resource and community site for the developmental biology community. The Company of Biologists is a not for profit publishing organisation dedicated to supporting and inspiring the biological community. The Company publishes five specialist peer-reviewed journals: Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open. It offers further support to the biological community by facilitating scientific meetings and communities, providing travel grants for researchers and supporting research societies.
The Node team consists of:
Joyce Yu, the Node Community Manager. Prior to joining the Node in April 2023, Joyce worked in the science communications team at Alzheimer’s Research UK. Joyce completed her PhD with Jean-Paul Vincent at the Francis Crick Institute, where she looked at Wnt signalling in fruit flies.
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Alex Eve, Executive Editor of Development. Alex joined Development in 2018 as a Reviews Editor and then Senior Editor, following a postdoc at the University of Exeter, where he investigated Hedgehog signalling evolution and a PhD at the National Institute for Medical Research studying zebrafish vascular development.
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Our header images
We have five beautiful header images on the Node, winners of a community competition we ran in early 2021.
- Catshark by Rory Cooper, University of Geneva, Switzerland. Cleared and alizarin and stained hatchling catshark embryo.
- Zebrafish lymphatics by Daniel Castranova, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, USA. Lymphatic vessels shown in blue and neutrophils shown in orange in the head of a double transgenic juvenile zebrafish.
- Mouse embryo by Evan Bardot, MSKCC Sloan Kettering Institute, USA. Cleared E12.5 embryo labelled with antibodies against Cntn2 (green) and ColIV (magenta). Generated in Collaboration with James Muller.
- Zebrafish retina by Gonzalo Aparicio, Universidad de la República in Uruguay. Retina from a 72hpf zebrafish embryo. Photoreceptor marker shown in red, while gfap:eGFP (a Muller cell marker) is shown z-depth pseudo-coloured.
- Preimplantation mouse embryos by Markus Schliffka, Institut Curie, France. Different stages of mouse preimplantation development from the zygote to the blastocyst, with nuclei in cyan and actin in grey.
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