Vivian Li

Vivian Li is a Hong Kong-born cell and developmental biologist working in cancer research at London's Francis Crick Institute. She has been researching how stem cells in the human bowel are programmed to ensure a healthy organ and what goes wrong when cancer develops. She is known for her work on the Wnt signalling pathway, discovering a new way that a molecule called Wnt is activated in bowel cancer. She won a Future Leaders in Cancer Research Prize in part for this discovery.

Education and early career Li studied molecular biotechnology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong from 2000 to 2003, focusing on plant biotech in her final year. She then pursued a PhD in pathology at the University of Hong Kong, awarded in 2008. After her PhD, Li spent a few years working under Hans Clevers' at the Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands.

Li became a group leader in 2013, setting up her laboratory at the MRC's National Institute for Medical Research (now part of the Francis Crick Institute). She was appointed a group leader at the Francis Crick Institute in April 2015. Li's work has offered the prospect of targeted treatment of tumour cells without toxic effects on healthy cells. This discovery was one of the reasons that she won a Future Leaders in Cancer Research Prize in 2018. Li was listed as a ‘scientist to watch’ in an article on the rising stars of culture, science and food in 2019 in The Observer.

Li aims to use her expertise in growing intestines in the lab to improve organ transplantation in the future. This technique could one day be used to personalised transplants for children with intestinal failure.

Events Li was part of New Scientist's Live Talks in 2019, with a talk entitled 'Fighting cancer: How growing mini organs could create better treatment.

Awards and honours Gold Medal Prize for PhD thesis. 2018 Future Leaders in Cancer Research Prize by Cancer Research UK, 2021 Women in Cell Biology Early Career Medal Winner by British Society for Cell Biology, awarded to an outstanding female cell biologist who has started her own research group within the last 6 years 2021 BACR/AstraZeneca Young Scientist Frank Rose Award by British Association for Cancer Research, awarded to recognise and reward the achievements of an individual whose work has made significant contributions to translational (laboratory - clinic) cancer research.