Ten current HHMI investigators have won the Nobel Prize. In addition to Richard Axel and Linda B. Buck, the list includes these laureates:

GÜNTER BLOBEL, at the Rockefeller University, won the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery that certain proteins use intrinsic signals to govern their transport and localization in the cell.

HHMI President THOMAS R. CECH shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery that RNA in living cells is not only a molecule of heredity but can also function as a biocatalyst.

JOHANN DEISENHOFER, at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work that used x-ray crystallography to describe the structure of a protein involved in photosynthesis.

H. ROBERT HORVITZ, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for identifying key genes that regulate organ development and programmed cell death.

ERIC R. KANDEL, at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system.

RODERICK MACKINNON, at the Rockefeller University, shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for research on the structure and function of cellular ion channels.

SUSUMU TONEGAWA, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, won the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the genetic principle for generation of antibody diversity.

ERIC WIESCHAUS, at Princeton University, shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for identifying 15 genes of key importance in determining the body plan and the formation of body segments of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster.

—Mary Beth Gardiner

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Reprinted from the HHMI Bulletin,
Fall 2004, pages 4-6.
©2004 Howard Hughes Medical Institute