细胞分化（cellular differentiation），是发育生物学的研究课题之一，指的是在多细胞生物中，一个干细胞在分裂的时候，其子细胞的基因表达受到调控，例如DNA甲基化，变成不同细胞类型的过程。类如全能（totipotent）的受精卵在分裂到一定程度时，其子细胞就会开始向特定的方向分化，形成胎儿的肌肉，骨骼，毛发等器官。分化后的细胞在其结构，功能上都会出现差异，而且成为了所谓的“单能性”细胞（unipotent），就是其只能分裂得出同等细胞类型的子细胞。但是所有这些子细胞的基因组（Genome）却是与“祖宗”的干细胞一样的。研究细胞分化，对理解疾病的发生，如癌症的出现有着重要意义。

In developmental biology, cellular differentiation is the process of a cell changing from one cell type to another. Most commonly this is a less specialized type becoming a more specialized type, such as during cell growth. Differentiation occurs numerous times during the development of a multicellular organism as it changes from a simple zygote to a complex system of tissues and cell types. Differentiation continues in adulthood as adult stem cells divide and create fully differentiated daughter cells during tissue repair and during normal cell turnover. Some differentiation occurs in response to antigen exposure. Differentiation dramatically changes a cell's size, shape, membrane potential, metabolic activity, and responsiveness to signals. These changes are largely due to highly controlled modifications in gene expression and are the study of epigenetics. With a few exceptions, cellular differentiation almost never involves a change in the DNA sequence itself. Thus, different cells can have very different physical characteristics despite having the same genome.