The community site for and by
developmental and stem cell biologists

Behind the paper stories

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

Cilia, Reissner Fiber and Crooked Spines

Posted by , on 18 May 2020

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of attending any scientific meeting is the privilege of becoming aware of novel research findings in our fields of interest, prior to their appearance in …

Shaping the embryo towards gastrulation

Posted by , on 13 May 2020

Kyprianou, C., Christodoulou, N., Hamilton, R.S. et al. Basement membrane remodelling regulates mouse embryogenesis. Nature (2020). doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2264-2 Morphogenesis is a complicated network of processes that involve cell shape changes, cell movements …

Zipping up the neural tube

Posted by , on 21 April 2020

Matteo A. Molè & Andrew J. Copp Molè et al., Integrin-Mediated Focal Anchorage Drives Epithelial Zippering during Mouse Neural Tube Closure. Dev. Cell. 52, 321-334.e6 (2020). Zippering is a striking …

Kink in the road: the notochord’s role in spine formation and scoliosis

Posted by , on 14 April 2020

By Jennifer Bagwell and Michel Bagnat   Our lab investigates the role of hydrostatic pressure as a morphogenetic force using zebrafish as a model system.  This work was originally focused …

Preventing cellular mixing with programmed cell death

Posted by , on 12 February 2020

By Lisandro Maya-Ramos and Takashi Mikawa Bilaterality, the property of having two symmetrical sides, is widely conserved among animals. It is estimated that 99% of all animal species are bilaterians, …

Off and On: it’s more complicated than we thought.

Posted by , on 23 January 2020

We learn fairly early on when becoming biologists that both development and an organism’s response to environmental stressors require turning the right set of genes on in the right cells, …

What might evolutionary muscle loss and pathological atrophies have in common?

Posted by , on 8 January 2020

By Mai P. Tran and Kimberly L. Cooper “It’s the cutest rodent I have ever seen, even cuter than a cuddly hamster, and it would be fun doing a rotation for …

A domino effect on brain developmental evolution

Posted by , on 6 December 2019

The discipline “Evo-devo” studies the developmental basis of morphological evolution. In the field, some original animal models are emerging as interesting model organisms, enriching the knowledge in the field more …

“If you notice something unusual in your experiments, don’t just throw it away!”

Read Laura Pellegrini’s piece on choroid plexus organoids 

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.

Updated on 21 August 2024