The people behind the papers - Zhi Ye and David Kimelman

The anterior to posterior extension of the vertebrate body axis relies on a population of bipotent neuromesodermal progenitors in the tailbud. A new paper in Development uncovers a crucial and unexpected new role for Hox13 genes in sustaining these progenitors to promote axis extension in zebrafish. To hear more about the story, we caught up with the paper's two authors: postdoctoral researcher Zhi Ye and his supervisor David Kimelman, Professor of Biochemistry and Adjunct Professor of Biology at the University of Washington, Seattle.