A software program developed by a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researcher has been shown to successfully predict what type of cell individual stem cells will eventually turn into.

According to Nature Methods, the journal in which a paper detailing the program was published, the software uses complex mathematical procedures to take snapshots of stem cells as they differentiate and studies their movement over time to accurately predict what type of cell they will become.

Stem cells are potential cells that can generate other specific, mature types of cells such as brain, skin and bone cells. They exist in embryonic and adult forms that have different levels of ability to differentiate.

UWM assistant professor Andrew Cohen, creator of the software, said he has been working on the program since 2005.

“The program is designed to take a picture of the cell through a microscope every so often and find objects in these image sequences. It will look for meaningful changes in the way an object behaves over time,” Cohen said. “It’s a general tool for comparing dynamic behaviors.”

Developmental biologists are trying to discover what controls a stem cell’s fate. If biologists are able to predict the cell’s fate before it divides, it will give them the ability to study the interior of the cell. With this knowledge, the ultimate goal would be to manipulate the fate of the stem cell, Cohen said.

“The software enables a whole realm of new experiments,” Cohen said. “It is innovative because it is for such a general purpose. It can be used to study stem cells, mitochondria and a whole host of different biological problems using the same piece of software.”

While stem cell research is a growing field, Allison Ebert, an associate scientist and stem cell expert at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, considers UW-Madison to be an established leader in this field.

UW-Madison was responsible for deriving the world’s first human embryonic stem cells in 1998. This was an extraordinary and historical contribution to the field of stem cell research, Ebert said.

While there are currently no plans to use the software on the UW-Madison campus for stem cell research, Ebert said the software could possibly be used in the future.

One of the most recent breakthroughs in stem cell research at UW-Madison involved the development of adult skin cells than can be reprogrammed back to an embryonic like state.

“This is innovative because it gets around the ethical issue of using fertilized embryos in research,” Ebert said.

However, the cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells, have been shown not as effective as their natural counterpart.

Along with its past and recent breakthroughs, UW-Madison is currently in the process of conducting numerous stem cell research projects, according to Ebert.

“There are a lot of very important studies going on,” Ebert said. “Trying to understand the disease process and how diseases can be stopped, discovering useful drugs for diseases and how to restrict embryonic cells to become specialized cells are a few of the current [UW-Madison] studies involving stem cell research.”