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Plant growth is a balance between the proliferation of stems and the establishment and maintenance of defined developmental fates in progeny cells.Our major goal is to elucidate general molecular mechanisms used by plant cells to specify cell fates.The identification of genes responsible for the maintenance of stem cells and for the establishment and maintenance of differentiated cell fates through forward genetic screens implicate intercellular signaling in these processes.The role of the CLAVATA signaling pathway and its transcriptional target WUSCHEL are well known for regulating proliferation in shoot apical meristems.More recently the receptor kinase ACR4 was demonstrated to play a similar role in the root apical meristem, acting on the WUSCHEL-related transcription factor WOX5.Using a reverse genetic approach, we have identified novel functions for a number of previously uncharacterized receptor kinases, and in addition, we found several new roles for ones that are well studied.Analysis of the CLAVATA pathway receptors revealed an additional receptor kinase that regulates meristem size, and remarkably, a stem cell niche with broader fates than previously known in the developing gynoecium.We also identified three receptor kinases with roles similar to ACR4 and its relatives in both epidermal specification and root meristem maintenance.We will present our most recent results and models.