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Nature Materials 8, 166 (1 March 2009) | doi:10.1038/nmat2367

Material witness: Shaping fate

Philip Ball

The promise of stem-cell therapies for tissue regeneration hinges on the fact that, to a first approximation, stem cells can become any other cell type. But therein lies one of the biggest challenges — for how does a stem cell decide its fate? This decision is generally made in the body through complex biochemical pathways involving diffusing signalling molecules.