Patent ID: 8103455

Claim:
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 equation; ⅆ P n A , n B ⅆ t = λ ⁢ { r ⁡ [ ( n A - 1 ) ⁢ P n A - 1 , n B + ( n + 1 ) ⁢ P n A + 1 , n B - 2 ] + ( 1 - 2 ⁢ r ) ⁢ n A ⁢ P n A , n B - 1 - n A ⁢ P n A , n B } + r ⁡ [ ( n B + 1 ) ⁢ P n A , n B + 1 - n B ⁢ P n A , n B ] 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 behaviour of said cells.