Dr. Bhatias research focuses on achieving appropriate differentiation of human stem cells to endpoint cell types that can be used for either cell transplantation in patients or cells in large quantities in vitro for drug discovery and disease modeling. As understanding human stem cells requires a fundamental elucidation of self-renewal pathways, Dr. Bhatias research directly impacts cancer biology, specifically cancer stem cells. Dr. Bhatia has created novel tools and methodologies to generate and manipulate human stem cells towards improved differentiation, but also compared cancer stem cells to normal counterparts towards developing novel and robust quantitative assays to identify selective drugs.
