Bazzi Lab

Cells in a developing organism or tissue are faced with multiple fate choices. Remarkably, they are gradually determined and specified into more specific cell fates in a reproducible manner. Similar to a computer program that initiates a sequence of events where one leads to another, cells follow a defined path of fate allocation. However, unlike the binary computer systems, cell fate determination is much more complex, noisy and gradual.

Our main interest is to decipher part of these elaborate cell fate specification programs with a focus on the signaling pathways and cell cycle integration. In particular, our work is centered on how signaling pathways impact on the cell cycle and cell division to regulate cell fate choices during two developmental transitions in the mouse:

• (I) Pre-implantation to gastrulation
• (II) Skin epidermal stratification and hair patterning