About the Science Department

HHMI's Science Department oversees the activities of the Institute's field-based scientific programs in the United States and its international research initiatives. Science Department staff, led by the chief scientific officer (who is also an HHMI vice president), consist of scientific officers and administrative and managerial staff.

The scientific officers play a multifaceted role in the department's efforts. They serve as liaisons to their assigned host institutions—the universities and research centers in the United States where HHMI researchers are based—regarding scientific and administrative matters. They also oversee other initiatives in the Science Department's portfolio. Scientific officers provide advice and guidance to HHMI researchers; organize scientific competitions, meetings, and reviews; and develop and monitor scientific budgets. In addition, they work with HHMI's Office of the General Counsel on policy issues relating to scientific laboratory management, intellectual property, and conflicts of interest and represent the chief scientific officer on various Institute committees and project teams.

Jack Dixon joined HHMI in 2007 from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where he served as dean of scientific affairs. Dixon continues to maintain a laboratory at UCSD, where he holds a faculty position as professor of pharmacology, cellular and molecular medicine, chemistry, and biochemistry. Dixon is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences.

Dixon earned a B.A. in zoology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He led a pioneering study of protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPases), the enzymes that remove phosphate from proteins. His research on the catalytic mechanism of these enzymes included demonstrating that they function via a novel cysteine-phosphate intermediate. His interest in phosphatases led to determining the function of the tumor suppressor protein PTEN—work that has radically altered thinking about this gene.

As chief scientific officer, Dixon is responsible for the overall management of HHMI's Science Department and the HHMI investigator and early career scientist programs, including competitions, appointments, reviews, transfers, departures, compensation issues, and budget allocations. Other responsibilities include:

• Establishing and implementing new Science Department policies and procedures
• Identifying opportunities and initiatives to support the Institute's mission in biomedical research and science education
• Overseeing intellectual property, patents, material transfer agreements (MTAs), and consulting (in collaboration with HHMI's Office of the General Counsel)
• Serving as the Institute's contact for reporting alleged or suspected cases of scientific misconduct
• Managing and providing resource support for HHMI scientific officers
• Overseeing the International Research Scholars Program
• Overseeing the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV (K-RITH), a partnership between HHMI and the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa

Barbara Graves provides guidance to HHMI researchers on policy issues relating to scientific laboratory management, intellectual property, and conflicts of interest. In addition, she organizes scientific competitions, meetings, and reviews and develops and monitors scientific budgets.

A graduate of Rice University, Graves earned her Ph.D. from the University of Washington and completed postdoctoral training at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Carnegie Institute of Washington. Before joining HHMI in 2011, Graves served as senior director of Basic Science at the Huntsman Cancer Institute and she was professor and chair, Department of Oncological Sciences at the University of Utah School of Medicine, where she conducted research and provided training with an emphasis on transcriptional regulation and cancer biology. She was a member of HHMI's Medical Student Fellowship Review Panel from 1998 to 2001, and she has served on program and grant review panels for the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute, and Wellcome Trust, among others. She was selected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences in 2007.

She will continue to maintain her research program at the University of Utah. Her research investigates how sequence-specific DNA binding transcription factors regulate gene expression in normal and diseased states. The laboratory uses both biochemical and genomics approaches, and its current focus is the role of ETS transcription factors in cancer.

Edwin McCleskey also organizes HHMI's science meetings, and he serves as the Science Department's liaison to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory synchrotron, to building projects at the Marine Biological Laboratory and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and to HHMI's Exceptional Research Opportunities Program.

McCleskey earned a B.A. in biophysics from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in physiology and biophysics from the University of Washington. Before joining HHMI in 2007, McCleskey was a senior scientist at the Vollum Institute. He received the National Science Foundation's Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1987 and the Biophysical Society's Cole Award for contributions to membrane biophysics in 2006.

His research focused on the properties and functions of ion channels, the membrane proteins that underlie bioelectricity. Particular projects showed how calcium channels select calcium in preference to other ions, how opiates inhibit persistent pain without suppressing acute pain, and which ion channels are used to trigger the pain of a heart attack.

Dennis McKearin is also the department's liaison to the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV (K-RITH) in Durban, South Africa. Other responsibilities include serving as liaison to HHMI human research policy development.

McKearin earned a B.S. in plant biology from the University of New Hampshire and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He joined HHMI in 2008 from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, where he was associate dean for the Medical Scientist Training Program and professor of molecular biology. Among his other professional duties and honors, McKearin has served on multiple National Institutes of Health review panels, and he was elected a member of the executive committee, M.D./Ph.D. section of the American Association of Medical Colleges before joining HHMI.

His research focuses on germ-line stem cell biology in Drosophila and signaling in the stem cell niche.

Philip Perlman's other responsibilities include managing HHMI's Collaborative Innovation Award program and serving as liaison for stem cell research by HHMI investigators. In addition, Perlman is liaison for interactions with the Jackson Laboratory, including managing the mouse cryopreservation program. He also oversees operations at host institutions, including collaborative agreements, occupancy or infrastructure payments, and space inventory and renovations.

Perlman earned a B.A. in chemistry from the Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Indiana University. He joined HHMI in 2004 from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, where he was associate dean of the graduate school and professor of molecular biology.

His research focused on the molecular genetics of yeast mitochondria with an emphasis on self-splicing introns, intron-encoded proteins, intron transposons, and mtDNA organization and recombination.

Carl Rhodes also manages the HHMI investigator reviews and competitions. Other responsibilities include serving as liaison to the HHMI Bioethics Advisory Board, the HHMI–Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Exchange Program and issues related to HHMI public access policy.

Rhodes earned a B.A. in zoology and mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. in biology from the Johns Hopkins University. Before joining HHMI in 2000, he was associate dean for graduate programs in biology and biomedical sciences and professor of biochemistry and biology at Stanford University.

His research focused on the use of single-strand nucleases to map deletions in viral chromosomes and development of the nick translation technique to label DNA probes in vitro. Rhodes is responsible for innovations in teaching undergraduate biochemistry, including development of texts devoted to problem solving and examination writing.

 

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