Pulin is a Member of the Whitehead Institute and Associate Professor of Biology at MIT. Her research lies at the interface of developmental biology, synthetic biology, quantitative imaging, and systems biology. Her laboratory uses bottom-up reconstitution approaches to uncover the fundamental principles that govern multicellular self-organization, tissue patterning, and morphogenesis. Through the reconstruction of developmental processes in simplified and controllable systems, her work aims to reveal the minimal rules underlying complex biological phenomena and to establish a predictive framework for developmental biology.
Her work addresses a question central to many research themes at the IBDM: can the complex processes of tissue patterning and morphogenesis be understood from a small set of quantitative and generalizable principles?
Abstract:
Embryonic development exemplifies both conservation and diversification across biological systems. Decades of developmental genetics have identified the molecular and cellular components underlying key processes, revealing that diverse developmental contexts repeatedly deploy a shared set of core modules, including but not limited to morphogen gradients, planar cell polarity, and epithelial–mesenchymal interactions.
My lab aims to uncover the regulatory principles governing these conserved modules by reconstituting multicellular phenomena outside the embryo. Through such bottom-up approaches, we ask: what is the minimal set of components required for a given module to function? How are their dynamics coordinated in space and time? And how are these conserved systems modified to generate evolutionary diversity?
By reconstructing developmental processes in simplified and controllable settings, we seek to move beyond descriptive inventories of parts toward a predictive, quantitative understanding of development. Ultimately, our goal is to frame embryonic development as a dynamical system governed by generalizable principles, rather than a collection of context-dependent mechanisms.
Selected Publications: (full list)
- Li P. et al. Morphogen gradient reconstitution reveals Hedgehog pathway design principles. Science (2018).
- Schlissel G. & Li P. Synthetic developmental biology: understanding through reconstitution. Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology (2020).
- Schlissel G. et al. Diffusion barriers imposed by tissue topology shape Hedgehog morphogen gradients. PNAS (2024).
- Hutchins N.T., Cao A. & Li P. Discovering what is possible: How synthetic biology illuminates development. Cell Systems (2026, in press).
