MIT professors Gene-Wei Li and Michael Birnbaum are among the 12 researchers named 2023 Innovation Fund investigators by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Six pairs of scientists — alumni or advisors of Pew’s biomedical programs in the United States and Latin America — will partner on interdisciplinary research in human biology and disease.
A biophysicist, Gene-Wei Li, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Biology, studies how bacteria optimize the levels of proteins they produce at both mechanistic and systems levels. His lab focuses on design principles of transcription, translation, and RNA maturation. Li and his collaborator Katsuhiko Murakami, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Pennsylvania State University, will explore the complex genetics of cyanobacteria.
