Whitehead AI Fellow Na Sun receives a National Institutes of Health Director’s Early Independence Award

Whitehead Institute AI Fellow Na Sun has received a 2026 NIH Director’s Early Independence Award, which will support her research using artificial intelligence to study how cells communicate across tissues and organs in health and disease.

At Whitehead Institute, Sun develops advanced computational methods to analyze large-scale biological datasets and decode how cells interact in living tissues. Her work integrates machine-learning models with targeted genetic experiments to identify key communication pathways between cells and test how specific genetic changes alter gene activity, molecular and cell behaviors, particularly in brain disorders.

The Early Independence Award will support the continued development of Sun’s computational frameworks, as well as experiments designed to connect cell-cell communication to tissue organization and disease-associated genetic variation.

A component of the National Institutes of Health’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program, the Early Independence Award is granted to a small number of exceptionally promising early-career scientists, providing $250,000 per year in direct research funding for five years to launch fully independent research programs at an early stage of their careers.

“This funding and support will give our lab more flexibility to pursue ambitious ideas that we are genuinely excited about,” Sun says. “Receiving this award gave me confidence to develop new directions while continuing to build on our existing projects with renewed energy.”

Sun earned a bachelor’s degree in life science and a master’s degree in bioinformatics and developmental biology before completing her PhD in computer science at MIT, where she focused on computational biology. She established her lab at Whitehead Institute in 2024 as its inaugural AI Fellow.