The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group’s ADI program provides three years of funding for notably creative, early-stage biological research projects that would not otherwise be supported by traditional research funding programs. Li combines approaches from synthetic biology, developmental biology, biophysics, and systems biology to study how circuits of genes within individual cells communicate to enable multicellular functions and create the patterns of varied cell types comprising a tissue. Li also received an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, which supports unusually innovative research from early career investigators. The Award will fund her investigations of how the different cell types in the body interact to form organs. The project is part of Li’s broader study of how circuits of interacting genes enable cell-to-cell communication — work that could lead to ways to program stem cells to form tissues for regenerative medicine.