Yu Cai obtained his B.Sc (1993) from Xiamen University, China and Ph.D (2003) from Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) (in Bill Chia/Xiaohang Yang lab), National University of Singapore. He spent one year in the same lab as a postdoc before joining Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (TLL) as a Young Investigator (YI) in 2004. Currently, he is an adjunct assistant professor of Department of Biological Sciences, NUS, Singapore. His research includes stem cells, which can self-renew and give rise to differentiated daughters, are responsible for the generation of diverse cell types during development and the maintenance of tissue/organ homeostasis in adulthood. His laboratory deploys two well-established systems, female germline stem cells and neural stem cells of the model organism Drosophila melanogaster to study stem cell biology in an entire organism (in vivo). The immediate aim is to investigate the underlying mechanisms controlling stem cell self-renewal vs. differentiation during development. The long-term goal is to extrapolate their knowledge to stem cell-based therapy in regenerative medicine and cancer biology.