Abstract: The invention relates to a method of assessing the proliferation or differentiation behavior of a population of target cells in a biological system, said method comprising the steps of; [a] measuring the value of at least one proliferation characteristic of said cells at least one time point t, wherein said proliferation characteristic is the clone size distribution; [b] comparing the clone size distribution measured in [a] to a reference clone size distribution at a corresponding time point t predicted or described by the equation; wherein a difference between the measured clone size distribution of [a] and the predicted or described clone size distribution of [b] indicates an altered proliferation or differentiation behavior of said cells. The invention further relates to methods involving assessing the scaling form of the above behaviors, values of the parameters, and inferring effects on cell proliferation and/or differentiation therefrom.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method of assessing the proliferation or differentiation behaviour of a population of target cells in a biological system, said method comprising the steps of; [a] measuring the value of at least one proliferation characteristic of said cells at least one time point t, wherein said proliferation characteristic is the clone size distribution; [b] comparing the clone size distribution measured in [a] to a reference clone size distribution at a corresponding time point t predicted or described by the predicted or described clone size distribution of [b] indicates an altered proliferation or differentiation behaviour of said cells. The invention further relates to methods involving assessing the scaling form of the above behaviours, values of the parameters, and inferring effects on cell proliferation and/or differentiation therefrom.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method of detecting an altered behaviour in a population of cells, said method comprising determining at least one of the following characteristics of the population of cells; (i) the proportion of stem cells, proliferating cells and differentiated cells in said cell population; or (ii) the size of stem cell clusters in said cell population; or (iii) the separation of stem cell clusters in said cell population; and comparing said at least one characteristic to a reference value, wherein a difference between the determined value and the reference value indicates an altered behaviour in said population of cells. Preferably the cells are mammalian, more preferably human epithelial cells, more preferably human epidermal cells.