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

Behind the paper: What bats can tell us about the evolution of mammalian teeth

Posted by , on 25 September 2023

Find out about the behind the paper story from Alexa Sadier about the origin of tooth classes in bats.

Patterning the butterfly wing through Wnt signaling

Posted by , on 31 August 2023

Read the story behind the paper from Tirtha Das Banerjee and Antόnia Monteiro about Wnt signaling in setting up butterfly wing patterns.

A tale of two fishes

Posted by , on 25 August 2023

Krista Gert, a recent doctoral graduate from Andrea (Andi) Pauli’s lab at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, Austria, recently published a study on how Bouncer, a small egg …

Assembling a “Stem Cell Zoo”

Posted by , on 12 July 2023

One of the most fascinating observations that comes from comparing mammalian development is the difference in developmental tempo across species (Ebisuya & Briscoe, 2018). Mice and humans develop through a …

Living up to your cnidarian potential

Posted by , on 22 June 2023

Áine Varley tells the story behind the paper “Pluripotent, germ cell competent adult stem cells underlie cnidarian regenerative ability and clonal growth”.

Behind the paper: how to turn scales into feathers 

Posted by , on 16 June 2023

Read the story behind the paper about an experimental method for transforming chicken scales into true feathers.

Uncovering the origins of the adult adipose tissue in flies

Posted by , on 24 May 2023

Read the story behind the work by Taiichi Tsuyama, Tadashi Uemura and colleagues, uncovering the precursor cells that give rise to the adult fat body in Drosophila.

Behind the Paper: the discovery of a novel cell type involved in fly touch sensing

Posted by , on 23 May 2023

Read the story behind the paper where Dr Federica Mangione, Nic Tapon and colleagues report a new type of specialised epidermal cells involved in touch sensing in Drosophila.

“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