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A recent discovery has found a possible avenue to improve human health by better understanding how to engineer human stem cell differentiation.

Texas A&M University chemical engineering professor Dr. Gregory Reeves has led this discovery of the highly conserved Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) Signaling Pathway, which operates in all animals and can achieve a variety of outcomes depending on the context.

"With this research, we are beginning to put together a roadmap of how to alter cells, such as adult human stem cells," Reeves said. "They differentiate faster and more reliably, which would lead to advances in the therapeutic potential of stem cells."

Reeves and his team have observed how cell signaling pathways drive cellular decision-making across different tissues and contexts. Signaling pathways such as the BMP pathway play important roles in these cellular responses.

"A cell is definitely a complex system," Reeves said. "So it's not a surprise that we find engineering principles in the cell. I think that as we study biology more and more, we find out that biological systems are chock full of engineering principles, and I'm very interested in studying how those engineering principles are there."

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