The research of the Tajbakhsh laboratory focuses on identifying and characterizing skeletal muscle stem cells. His lab aims to characterize stem cells, and their daughters, during embryonic and postnatal development of skeletal muscle to understand how this tissue is established, and how it regenerates during disease, and after injury. They are examining the genetic networks, which regulate myogenic stem cell emergence, and relating this to how cell order is established in this lineage. They are also investigating how stem/progenitor cells self-renew, essentially via symmetric vs. asymmetric cell divisions, and how the stem cell niche is defined.