Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) is a prototypic member of the fibroblast growth factor family. Cytokines in the FGF family possess broad mitogenic and cell survival activities (Folkman and Klagsbrun; Kimelman and Kirschner) and are involved in a variety of biological processes including cell proliferation, differentiation, survival, and apoptosis (Folkman and Klagsbrun; Klagsbrun; Rifkin and Moscatelli). bFGF has the β-trefoil structure (Ponting and Russell), binds to the four FGF receptor (FGFR) family members, and activates JAK/STAT, PI3K, ERK1/2, and other receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) signaling pathways. It supports the maintenance of undifferentiated human pluripotent stem cells (Xu et al.; Kang et al.), stimulates human pluripotent stem cells to form neural rosettes (Zhang et al.), and improves proliferation of human mesenchymal stem cells and enhances chondrogenic differentiation (Solchaga et al.). This version of bFGF is the full-length bFGF protein encoded by the human FGF2 gene consisting of 154 amino acid residues. This product is animal component-free.