Behind the paper stories
Every paper has a story behind it, and we regularly commission scientists to tell theirs. In this collection you’ll discover the highs and the lows, the chance encounters and life changing discoveries from the breadth of developmental biology and stem cell research.
Recent posts
Behind the paper: “Recording morphogen signals reveals origins of gastruloid symmetry breaking”
Posted by Harry McNamara, on 17 January 2025
Stem cell models as laboratories to study self-organization My road from physics to developmental biology began in a journal club during my PhD in Adam Cohen’s lab at Harvard. We …Winding road to the cambial stem cells
Posted by Ari Pekka Mähönen, on 13 January 2025
In plants, the vascular cambium, a bifacial stem cell niche, drives wood formation by generating the xylem on one side and the phloem on the other. In this post, Ari …Behind the paper: “Temporal variability and cell mechanics control robustness in mammalian embryogenesis”
Posted by Bernat Corominas-Murtra, on 15 December 2024
The massive presence of disorder and variability challenges the traditional metaphor of the developmental process as a perfectly executed program leading to precise mechanisms at every level [1,2]. Yet, the …Don’t eat me!!
Posted by Cecilia Pessoa, on 15 November 2024
When I joined the Zon lab in June 2021, my mentor, Leonard Zon, shared an insightful piece of advice: “A good project always has two questions, one you can answer …Behind the paper: A transcriptomic hourglass in brown algae
Posted by Jaruwatana Sodai Lotharukpong, on 12 November 2024
Brown algae are a group of complex multicellular eukaryotes, unrelated to animals, plants and fungi. It follows that brown algae evolved the process of multicellular development independently, offering a unique …Behind the paper: Highlighting skeleton-producing cells during the development of a pentaradial animal
Posted by Heidi Tate, on 24 September 2024
Read the story behind the paper “Localization and origins of juvenile skeletogenic cells in the sea urchin Lytechinus pictus” from Heidi Tate.Making a map: exploring the origins of the shoulder and neck
Posted by Shunya Kuroda, on 18 September 2024
Read the story behind the paper “Multiple embryonic sources converge to form the pectoral girdle skeleton in zebrafish” from first author Shunya Kuroda.A short rant on the present and future of developmental biology
Posted by Jonas Hartmann, on 11 September 2024
Observing a cluster of migrating cells or a developing embryo through the lens of a microscope can be a visceral experience; one is struck by the ephemeral beauty, layered complexity, …
“If you notice something unusual in your experiments, don’t just throw it away!”
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Our full archive going back to 2010 is filterable by category, tag and date.