Other examples abound. Earlier this year, HHMI announced $86.4 million in new grants for innovative science education programs at 50 research universities in 28 states and the District of Columbia. This is the first funding from HHMI for six institutions, including the University of Florida, which will create a core laboratory for undergraduate research and then collaborate with Atlanta's Morehouse College to establish a teaching postdoctoral fellowship program. Others, like Princeton University, will build on previous HHMI grants to undertake new initiatives. In the next grant period, Princeton will develop a curriculum that better integrates physics and engineering into undergraduate biology, giving students the opportunity to build the microscopes they will use to study genetics and neurobiology.

As with the investments we make in undergraduate education and outreach, HHMI's new program that provides seed funding to a group of physician-scientists is expected to generate outsized results. Focus groups of young physician alumni of research training programs run by HHMI revealed that the first few years as a junior faculty member are the most critical. Two challenges that new faculty physicians often cite as reasons for abandoning the research career path are lack of flexible funding to accommodate the needs of a new lab and lack of time to actually do research.

So, we decided to apply some resources to facilitate the transition of these young hopefuls into full-fledged researchers. This year, HHMI inaugurates a new program to jump-start the careers of some of the alumni of the two Institute-funded research fellowship programs. Thirteen physician-scientists who have just begun their tenure-track appointments will receive the first early career awards, which will include a grant of $150,000 over 3 years for research. One stipulation of the awards is that their institutions will give these individuals the freedom to spend most of their time on research, identifying mechanisms that cause disease and potential new therapies for conditions that include diabetes and cancer.

The discovery of knowledge defines a frontier no less real than the physical frontier that fed the imagination of 19^th-century America. Through almost 20 years of grant making, HHMI has had the opportunity to support scientists and educators committed to nurturing the seeds of discovery. It makes for a beautiful orchard, indeed.

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