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🧬 Stem Cell Differentiation and Waddington's Landscape

Interactive 3D epigenetic landscape where a ball representing a stem cell rolls through valleys toward different cell fates, with adjustable ridges representing gene-regulatory constraints on differentiation.

Biology2DAdvanced60 FPS

A ball representing a stem cell rolls downhill across a branching 3D epigenetic landscape, forking at each ridge into progressively more committed valleys until it settles into one of four differentiated cell-fate basins.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Waddington's classic metaphor for cell differentiation: gene-regulatory constraints act as ridges that channel a pluripotent cell down one of several paths toward a stable, differentiated identity.

🎮 How to Use

Adjust ridge depth, slope steepness, and stochastic noise, then optionally pick a target fate to bias the outcome. Release a new stem cell and watch it roll and fork down the landscape.

💡 Did You Know?

Reprogramming factors (Yamanaka factors) can push a differentiated cell's ball back "uphill" into a pluripotent state — the biological basis of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).

⚙ Under the hood

stem-cellsdifferentiationwaddington-landscapeepigeneticsdevelopmental-biologycell-fate

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install