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An entirely new flock of birds alighted at HHMI in September: 40-plus early career scientists, whose research demonstrates considerable promise, joined our community. We're looking forward to hearing from them and to the lively interchange of scientific thinking that occurs throughout the year. This is serious fun—enlivened by news that two HHMI colleagues received 2009 Nobel Prizes. Jack Szostak of Massachusetts General Hospital shared the Nobel in Physiology or Medicine with Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco, and Carol Greider of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The trio showed how the ends of chromosomes are synthesized, how they can be copied in a complete way during cell division, and how they are protected against degradation. Two days later, Tom Steitz of Yale University shared the Chemistry Prize with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, and Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science for discoveries that elucidated the structure and function of the ribosome—the complex cellular machinery that churns out the proteins necessary for life. And on that very same day, Elaine Fuchs of the Rockefeller University was at the White House to receive the National Medal of Science. Wow.
But I'm doing more than listening to great science and popping Champagne. I'm thinking about the future, about ways that HHMI can speed the dispersal of ideas through the academic research community and seed new discoveries. Toward that end, the Institute has joined with Stanford University and others in an initiative to reduce the paperwork that has slowed the exchange of research materials within the nonprofit and academic sectors. As long as certain conditions are met, our scientists will no longer need material transfer agreements to share nonhuman biological materials; if and when a materials transfer agreement is necessary, we hope to simplify the paperwork. This approach should free HHMI investigators to focus on research while enabling the Institute's talented legal staff to address more pressing issues.
I have also asked my scientific and legal colleagues to consider whether HHMI policies that govern the interactions between our scientists and the private sector should be streamlined. Do these policies, which have been subject to thoughtful revision over time, help or hinder the translation of discoveries made in HHMI laboratories into useful therapies for people? Can we encourage appropriate collaboration while maintaining the high ethical standards that define HHMI's scientific culture?
Photo: Barbara Ries
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