Expansion: 1993-1999

February 8, the Institute begins operations at its new headquarters and conference center.

HHMI awards grants totaling $28.5 million to 47 colleges and universities to improve undergraduate science education.

HHMI scientists collaborate on identifying the gene that causes a form of Lou Gehrig's disease, and also the gene that causes Huntington's disease.

The Institute extends its international biomedical research effort by awarding grants totaling $13.5 million over five years to support the work of 29 scientists in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

The Institute awards nearly $15 million in five-year grants for the research of 90 outstanding biomedical scientists in 10 countries of the Baltics, Central Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Mark Keating, an HHMI investigator at the University of Utah, uncovers two genetic mutations responsible for a syndrome characterized by life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia.

HHMI investigators Christine E. Seidman at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Jonathan G. Seidman at Harvard Medical School identify mutations associated with familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an inherited disease that stops the heart without warning and is the most common cause of death in young athletes.

HHMI awards $86 million in grants for science education at college campuses and K-12 schools nationwide.

Two HHMI investigators-Kevin Campbell at the University of Iowa and Louis Kunkel at Children's Hospital in Boston-independently find a gene involved in limb-girdle muscular dystrophy. Campbell's group develops a screening test to identify carriers of the gene.

Ronald Evans, an HHMI investigator at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, discovers a hormone that triggers precursor cells to become fat cells.

James A. Baker, III, former U.S. secretary of state and secretary of the treasury, is elected an HHMI trustee.

Fifty-two colleges and universities receive $45 million in grants to strengthen their undergraduate education programs in the biological sciences.

Thirty medical schools receive grants from the Institute under the Research Resources Program.

HHMI investigator Matthew Scott at Stanford University School of Medicine and colleagues at Stanford and at the University of California, San Francisco, identify a genetic defect that causes basal cell carcinoma.

The Institute supports a program at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis to sequence part of the mouse genome, an effort that will speed the identification of human disease-causing genes.

Dan R. Littman, an HHMI investigator at New York University Medical Center, finds a receptor used by HIV to infect human cells.

Seventy scientists selected in a national competition are appointed HHMI investigators in the largest single expansion ever undertaken by the Institute.

Bert Vogelstein, an HHMI investigator at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and his colleagues identify a mutational "hotspot" in a gene, which indirectly increases predisposition to colon cancer.

HHMI investigators Linda B. Buck at Harvard Medical School and Catherine Dulac at Harvard University, both of whom were postdoctoral fellows in the laboratory of HHMI investigator Richard Axel at Columbia University, independently discover a set of pheromone-detecting sensory receptors in mice and rats.

A research team led by HHMI investigator Thomas R. Cech at the University of Colorado at Boulder identifies the human gene that produces the catalytic subunit of telomerase, a protein involved in cell division that may also play a key role in aging and the origins of cancer.

The Institute awards $15 million in grants to support the research of 47 outstanding biomedical researchers in six countries of the Americas-Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico, and Venezuela.

The battle against AIDS moves forward when two HHMI investigators -- Don Wiley at Harvard University and Children's Hospital of Boston and Peter Kim at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT -- independently discover how the protein fragment gp41 helps HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, penetrate host cells.

HHMI investigator Xiaodong Wang of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas identifies a protein that triggers the final stage of apoptosis, or cell death.

Hanna H. Gray is elected chairman of the trustees, succeeding Irving S. Shapiro.

The Institute awards $8 million in four-year grants to museums and other institutions to help bring science to life for precollege students.

HHMI investigator Roderick MacKinnon and his colleagues at The Rockefeller University determine the three-dimensional structure of a channel in the cell membrane that controls the intake of potassium ions, solving a mystery that had challenged scientists for over 50 years.

The Institute pledges $12 million in four-year grants to biomedical research institutions to provide science education opportunities for precollege students and teachers. The grants will help institutions stimulate interest in science through programs for students, families, teachers, and community groups.

Susan Lindquist, an HHMI investigator at the University of Chicago, and her colleagues find that proteins known as chaperones, which help proteins fold properly, also can trigger damaging changes in normal proteins.

Oxford University Press publishes the book Molecular and Cellular Approaches to Neural Development, edited by W. Maxwell Cowan, HHMI vice president and chief scientific officer, and two HHMI investigators, Thomas M. Jessell at Columbia University and S. Lawrence Zipursky of the University of California, Los Angeles. The book grew out of a 1994 scientific workshop at the Institute.

Researchers led by Wayne Hendrickson, an HHMI investigator at Columbia University, determine the three-dimensional crystal structure of glycoprotein 120, a protein on the outer surface of HIV-1 that enables the AIDS virus to latch onto its target cells. Knowing the protein's structure, which had eluded researchers for a decade, could speed vaccine development.

HHMI announces plans to award $90 million in four-year grants to help selected medical schools sustain biomedical research activities. The awards build on a similar series of grants totaling $80 million that HHMI awarded to 30 medical schools in 1995.

Researchers led by Masashi Yanagisawa, an HHMI investigator at the University of Texas Southwestern at Dallas, discover two neuropeptides that stimulate appetite. The proteins, named orexins (from orexis, the Greek word for appetite), and their receptors help explain how the brain senses hunger.

Jeremy R. Knowles, dean of the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Amory Houghton Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, is elected an HHMI trustee.

Thomas R. Cech is elected president of the Institute.

Günter Blobel, an HHMI investigator at the Rockefeller University, receives the 1999 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery that proteins are encoded with signals that govern their transport and localization in the cell.

A multi-laboratory project with collaboration from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute produces a free, publicly accessible catalog of mouse gene fragments that will help ensure that the mouse remains an important model in the genomic era.

HHMI investigator Linda B. Buck and HHMI associate Bettina Malnic at Harvard Medical School, in conjunction with colleagues from Japan, solve one of olfactory research's biggest puzzles -- how the nose discriminates between different odors.

Collaborating groups of HHMI investigators, including Corey Goodman at the University of California, Berkeley, and Marc Tessier-Lavigne at the University of California, San Francisco, discover a protein that can repel growing neurons or trigger neurons to sprout new connections.

HHMI awards $91.1 million to help strengthen undergraduate education programs in the biological sciences. Of the 191 proposals submitted, 58 research and doctoral universities were selected to receive the four-year grants.

A team of HHMI investigators identifies new antiviral compounds capable of preventing HIV entry into cells.

Researchers led by Huda Y. Zoghbi, an HHMI investigator at Baylor College of Medicine, in collaboration with researchers led by Uta Francke, an HHMI investigator at Stanford University School of Medicine, end a 14-year search for the genetic mutations that trigger a neurodegenerative disease.

A group led by HHMI investigator Peter Kim at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology develops a new class of specifically targeted molecules that can prevent HIV infection of human cells.

David C. Page, an HHMI investigator at MIT's Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, finds mutations in a single gene on the male sex chromosome that prevents sperm from developing, a discovery that could eventually lead to male contraceptives and treatments for male infertility.