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

Precision by design: Setting boundaries in patterning

Posted by , on 1 March 2021

Developmental patterning is an essential process for multicellular development, as it drives the cell-fate decisions that determine an organism’s body plan. One of the aspects that has fascinated me is …

Pairing of segmentation clock genes results in robust pattern formation

Posted by , on 4 February 2021

Oriana Zinani, Kemal Keseroğlu, Ahmet Ay and Ertuğrul Özbudak on how gene pairing promotes oscillations in segmentation

4D Morphological Atlas of C. elegans Embryogenesis

Posted by , on 2 February 2021

A joint research team co-led by Prof. Chao Tang (Peking University, PKU), Prof. Zhongying Zhao (Hong Kong Baptist University, HKBU) and Prof. Hong Yan (City University of Hong Kong, CityU) …

A facial birth defect is caused by perturbation of extreme long-range enhancers

Posted by , on 25 January 2021

Hannah Long tells the story of how she uncovered the genetic basis of a developmental disorder

Engineering morphogenesis using self-organized embodiment

Posted by , on 20 January 2021

During their journey from zygote to adult, embryos experience several symmetry breaking processes. Structures which are not isotropic (equal in all directions) are formed, creating the inside-out axis, forward-backwards axis, …

Establishing connections

Posted by , on 16 December 2020

Jos Wendrich, Yvan Saeys and Bert De Rybel take us on a single cell journey through the Arabidopsis root

Actin and microtubules link to form a tube within a single cell

Posted by , on 14 December 2020

In the Genetics of Cell Behaviour in Development laboratory, at the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics at the University of Barcelona, we work with the terminal cells (TCs) of …

Looking to crustaceans to understand insect wing evolution

Posted by , on 19 October 2020

The wings of vertebrates, like birds and bats, emerged relatively recently, and we understand that these wings evolved from forelimbs. Even for the mythological dragon there seems to be a …

“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