Multicellular patterns and structures emerge as cells execute instructions received from cues in their microenvironment. Deciphering how cells integrate these cues to achieve an organized, functional structure is a fundamental question in biology with important biomedical implications in areas such as tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. An essential element in multicellular assembly involves direct cell-cell interactions. Cell-cell contacts are not only physical links between neighboring cells, but also sources of biochemical signals that instruct cellular behavior. Our lab has been focused on elucidating how direct cell-cell interactions crosstalk with other environmental cues to affect individual cell fate choices, and thereby, generate multicellular patterns. Using mammalian epithelial cell systems, our lab is (1) quantifying the assembly and disassembly of two-and three-dimensional multicellular structures and (2) parsing the underlying signaling crosstalk between soluble factors and cell-cell adhesion proteins. In this talk, I will describe recent insights into how epidermal growth factor (EGF) signaling and the cell-cell contact receptor, E-cadherin, compete for a common intracellular signal (b-catenin) that regulates cell cycle progression. Interestingly, this competition for b-catenin coordinates with growth factor trafficking mechanisms to regulate the cell cycle. Taken together, our data suggests that the effect of cell-cell contact on proliferation is multifaceted with long-range and short-range mechanisms dominating under different scenarios.