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

Odor sensing, metabolism, and blood-progenitors

Posted by , on 5 May 2022

In their recent Development paper, published in our Immune Special Issue, Manisha Goyal, Tina Mukherjee, and colleagues examine the pathways controlling ROS homeostasis during hematopoietic growth control.

A journey towards understanding the embryo – maternal vasculature interactions during implantation

Posted by , on 27 March 2022

Niraimathi Govindasamy from the Bedzhov lab, takes us through the story behind their paper on the interactions between the embryo and maternal vasculature.

Hanging by a hair: the life of a semi-aquatic bug.

Posted by , on 23 February 2022

A evo-devo research story from Cédric Finet asking why are water striders so hairy.

The order of discovery is not the order of the figures

Posted by , on 9 February 2022

Read the story behind the paper with Akihiro Kaneshige

Retinal ganglion cell survival after optic nerve injury – what can we learn from the zebrafish?

Posted by , on 14 December 2021

Read the story behind the paper with Jeff Gross

The making of.. human blastoids

Posted by , on 9 December 2021

In our recently published paper1, we show that human stem cells self-organize into blastocyst-like structures, which we term blastoids based on 4 criteria. Because blastoids can be generated in large …

Shining a Light on Adult Neural Stem Cells

Posted by , on 2 October 2021

Adult Neural Stem Cells (NSCs) have a remarkable capacity to produce new neurons and glia cells that integrate into pre-existing neural networks. Adult NSCs are found in all mammals, including humans, giving us hope of using the pool of adult …

How exploring single cell dynamics in the early embryo revealed a protective system based on mechanical cell cooperation

Posted by , on 15 July 2021

Esteban Hoijman and Verena Ruprecht describe how they found a phagocytic role for epithelial cells in early embryos

“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