Research Areas

Cell Fate Decision and Stem Cell Biology


The ontogeny and maintenance of multicellular life involves an exquisitely complex developmental process in which undifferentiated "stem cells" give rise to specialized cell types. Understanding this process promises to provide new treatments for many complex disease states related to developmental failures. Moreover, because of their ability to generate new specialized cells, stem cells hold the potential to treat a vast array of health problems, include spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, and many others. Elucidating the complex mechanisms by which extrinsic and intrinsic signals determine the proliferation or differentiation of stem cells is inherently a systems-level challenge, and will require new technologies for collecting data on cell populations and individual cells, and new methods to build models of cell decision processes.

  • Michael Cleary
  • Michael Colvin
  • Marcos Garcia-Ojeda
  • Jennifer Manilay
  • Kara McCloskey
  • Nestor Oviedo
  • Maria Pallavicini
    • Stem Cell