the community site for and by developmental biologists
the community site for and by developmental biologists
Posted by the Node Interviews on January 22nd, 2019
Last year I was lucky enough to travel to California for the first time for the Santa Cruz Developmental Biology meeting – see the meeting report, written with Jordan Ward, here. At the meeting I was lucky enough to interview three amazing scientists, one of whom was Vilaiwan Fernandes, winner of the SCDB Young Investigator Award[…]
Posted by the Node Interviews on September 4th, 2018
Axon guidance relies on the reception and integration of molecular cues from the environment by growth cones, and defective pathfinding results in misplaced projection patterns in the mature nervous system. A new paper in Development investigates this process in the Drosophila neuromucular system, as well as the consequences of axonal miswiring to locomotion. We caught up[…]
Posted by the Node Interviews on July 18th, 2018
Asymmetric division is a widespread mechanism for generating cellular diversity during developmental patterning. The stomata of flowering plants are epidermal valves that regulate gas exchange, and provide an accessible system to investigate the mechanisms of asymmetric cell division both within and across species. A paper in the new issue of Development reports an investigation of the molecular control of this[…]
Posted by the Node Interviews on July 6th, 2018
Contact inhibition of locomotion is a widespread phenomenon in migrating cells. However, cells often migrate collectively as a sheet, raising the question of how contact inhibition is overcome in these scenarios. A new paper in Development addresses this problem by studying the signals that regulate collective migration in Xenopus leading edge mesendoderm (LEM) cells. We[…]
Posted by Nicolas Rivron on June 27th, 2018
In our recently published paper1, we showed that mouse stem cells self-organize into blastocyst-like structures, that we termed blastoids. Because blastoids can be generated in large numbers, can be finely manipulated, and implant in utero, they are a powerful tool to investigate the principles of pre- and post-implantation development. Here is the backstory of our[…]
Posted by the Node on November 3rd, 2017
This interview by Katherine Brown originally appeared in Development, Vol 144 Issue 21 Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard is Director Emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany. In 1995, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine, along with Eric Wieschaus and Edward Lewis, for her work on the genetic control[…]
Posted by the Node on October 5th, 2017
This interview by Aidan Maartens appeared in Development, Vol 144 Issue 19 Jayaraj (Jay) Rajagopal is a Principal Investigator at the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. A Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Scholar, his lab works on the development and regeneration of[…]
Posted by the Node Interviews on September 29th, 2017
Cell polarisation is crucial for normal development and controlled by complex molecular interactions in the cytoplasm and at the membrane. Today we feature a paper recently published in Developmental Cell that describes a single-cell biochemistry technique and its insights into polarity protein dynamics the developing worm embryo. We caught up with first author Dan Dickinson, who carried out the work as a postdoc[…]
Posted by the Node on August 17th, 2017
This interview by Aidan Maartens originally appeared in Development, Volume 143, Issue 16. Jennifer Nichols is a Principal Investigator at the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute and Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, UK. Her lab works on lineage segregation and the establishment of pluripotency in the mammalian embryo. In 2017 she was[…]
Posted by the Node on August 3rd, 2017
To interview Jim Smith I took a train to London and visited the Francis Crick Institute for the first time. The building had opened in 2016 and, by the time I visited, most if not all of the labs had settled in. Architecturally it was quite stunning, especially looking down from one of the higher[…]
