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
Kink in the road: the notochord’s role in spine formation and scoliosis
Posted by Jennifer Bagwell, 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 Mikawa Lab, 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 stevegis, 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 maip.tran, 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 jorgetorrespaz, 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 …How do new cell types evolve? Sea urchins show the way….
Posted by ettenson, on 21 November 2019
We know surprisingly little about how evolution has created new cell types. One of the best examples of a recently evolved cell type comes from early sea urchin development. Most …A biology-modeling crosstalk to uncover feather pattern evolution
Posted by mariemanceau, on 20 November 2019
Richard Bailleul, Jonathan Touboul and Marie Manceau Patterning in question: 60 years of mathematical and biological studies The coat of Vertebrates displays a stunning diversity of motifs created by …How do cells know their future and forget their past
Posted by Noami Dayan, on 7 November 2019
All cells in the body contain the same genetic material. The difference between cells therefore depends solely on which genes are expressed or ‘turned on’. Now, researchers from the University …
“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.