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: 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.

Haemorrhages in foetal brain tissue associated with the presence of SARS-CoV-2: How SARS-CoV-2 impacted our PhD bringing new and important findings.

Posted by , on 19 May 2023

Read the story behind the work by Marco Massimo, Carlotta Barelli and Katie Long looking into haemorrhages in foetal brain tissue.

Behind the paper: How veiled chameleons (Chamaeleo calyptratus) make their left and right sides.

Posted by , on 15 May 2023

Read the behind the scenes story of a recent article by Dr. Natalia (Natasha) Shylo, Dr. Paul Trainor and colleagues at Stowers Institute for Medical Research.

Behind the paper: The mechanisms underlying microglial expansion in the developing brain

Posted by , on 1 May 2023

Dr Liam Barry-Carroll, Dr David A Menassa, Professor Diego Gomez-Nicola and colleagues have recently published a paper in Cell Reports elucidating the mechanisms by which microglial cells expand as a …

Behind the paper story: TWISTED, the birth of a new gene

Posted by , on 25 April 2023

Nayelli Marsch-Martínez tells the story behind the paper on finding a gene that appears to have been generated de novo, in a specific branch of the plant kingdom.

Behind the paper story: uncovering non-canonical functions of the Hippo pathway

Posted by , on 21 April 2023

Heya Zhao shares the story behind a recently published paper in Dev Cell where they reveal the non-canonical functions of the Hippo pathway in developmental cell fate decisions in the …

Behind the paper story: ‘How heterotypic cis/trans factors drive stomatal cell fate commitment’

Posted by , on 16 March 2023

Dr. Eun-Deok Kim and Professor Keiko Torii from The University of Texas at Austin, USA, have recently published an article in Nature Plants. The article discusses how heterotypic cis/trans factors …

Charting new territory: mapping the cell types in the octopus brain

Posted by , on 17 February 2023

Ruth Styfhals and Dr. Eve Seuntjens at the KU Leuven, Belgium, recently published a cell type atlas of a developing octopus brain in Nature Communications. The team behind the paper …

“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 March 2024