Elly Tanaka is a senior scientist at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, Austria. Her lab's research uses the axolotl - which possesses impressive regenerative capacity - to understand the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying limb and spinal cord regeneration. We met Elly in her office in Vienna on the occasion of the recent SY-Stem symposium (see Meeting Review by Porrello and Kirkeby in this issue) to talk about what drew her to regeneration research and the axolotl, the challenges of working in this field, and how she and her colleagues at the Vienna BioCenter are trying to support the new generation of stem cell researchers.