Quantifying Waddington’s Landscape: Modeling the gene networks that underlie cellular identity Pankaj Mehta, Boston University Every cell in your body is genetically identical. Yet, even genetically identical cells can exhibit diverse phenotypes ranging from neurons to muscles to stem cells. For this reason, the molecular basis of cellular identity and differentiation remains one of the most fundamental questions in biology. I will show how we are using techniques from physics to model the biomolecular networks that underlie cellular identity. The ultimate goal of this research is to rationally designing cellular reprogramming strategies to convert between any two cell types.

Quantifying Waddington’s Landscape: Modeling the gene networks that underlie cellular identity

Pankaj Mehta, Boston University

Every cell in your body is genetically identical. Yet, even genetically identical cells can exhibit diverse phenotypes ranging from neurons to muscles to stem cells. For this reason, the molecular

basis of cellular identity and differentiation remains one of the most fundamental questions in biology. I will show how we are using techniques from physics to model the biomolecular networks that underlie cellular identity. The ultimate goal of this research is to rationally designing cellular reprogramming strategies to convert between any two cell types.