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
Orphan nuclear receptors: individual and collective roles in mouse development
Posted by Nicola_Festuccia, on 10 February 2025
The elusive importance of NR5A2 and ESRRB as pluripotency factors Our paper entitled “Nr5a2 is dispensable for zygotic genome activation but essential for morula development” is the culmination of a …Deforming Nuclei: a way to move through the crowd!
Posted by Mariana Maia-Gil, on 3 February 2025
In their recent paper, Maia-Gil and colleagues explored whether and how nuclear properties can influence nuclear positioning in vivo. Their work revealed that in the densely packed retinal zebrafish neuroepithelium, …Divide and conquer. Or don’t divide but still conquer.
Posted by Kalki Kukreja, on 25 January 2025
Behind the paper story for “Cell state transitions are decoupled from cell division during early embryo development“ As embryos develop, their cells perform two fundamental tasks: they divide to populate …Tiny titans: fantastic worms and their powerful regenerative abilities
Posted by Rannyele Passos Ribeiro, on 19 January 2025
In their paper recently published in Evolution & Development, Vanessa Spieß, Rannyele P. Ribeiro and colleagues explore the regenerative abilities of the marine segmented worm Syllis malaquini. Their research reveals …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 …Do you have a story to tell? We can give comments on drafts and any level of editing you want, and we particularly encourage contributions from researchers for whom English is not their first language.
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Our full archive going back to 2010 is filterable by category, tag and date.