Because of their ability to model all of the (known and unknown) genetic risk factors underlying neuropsychiatric disease, hiPSCs are routinely used as a source of various types of neurons and astrocytes for study (Mertens et al., 2016). Current hiPSC-based methods for the differentiation of astrocytes typically rely on either a neural progenitor cell (NPC) (Haidet-Phillips et al., 2014, Krencik et al., 2011, McGivern et al., 2013, Serio et al., 2013, Shaltouki et al., 2013) or oligodendrocyte progenitor cell (Jiang et al., 2013) intermediate. While it has been widely demonstrated that hiPSCs can be differentiated to functional astrocytes for cell-based models of neuropsychiatric disorders in vitro (Haidet-Phillips et al., 2014, McGivern et al., 2013, Serio et al., 2013, Shaltouki et al., 2013) or engraftment in vivo (Chen et al., 2015, Haidet-Phillips et al., 2014, Jiang et al., 2013, Krencik et al., 2011), existing methods are slow (up to 6 months) (Jiang et al., 2013, Krencik et al., 2011, Shaltouki et al., 2013) and/or require sorting to reduce heterogeneity (Chaboub and Deneen, 2013, Yuan et al., 2011). Here, we screened a
