Year 2

Therapies and diagnostics that depend on differentiating stem cells may be fundamentally accelerated with a fusion of optical bioengineering and stem cell technology that we propose to develop and apply. Indeed, we anticipate that development and dissemination of this technology will lead to 1) in vitro methodology for fast reliable cell production, 2) deeper understanding of the basic science and biology of signaling in stem cells as they proliferate, differentiate, and generate phenotypically complete and stable progeny; and 3) in vivo methodology for noninvasively stimulating new cells in patients with devastating degenerative diseases.