These awards underscore the "international scope of science," says Peter J. Bruns, HHMI vice president for grants and special programs. Moreover, "the Institute's support of these scientific leaders in their home countries encourages those nations' most creative researchers, strengthens their research environments, and provides vital educational opportunities for aspiring scientists." Bruns also highlights the fact that the program invigorates research by fostering international scientific cooperation. Since 2000 alone, more than 50 transnational collaborations have sprung from HHMI meetings of international research scholars and HHMI investigators.

Two HHMI-supported scientists, for example, one from the United States and the other from Argentina, joined forces to identify two unique protein-forming features of Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease. Parasitologist Mariano Levin, who recently completed a term as HHMI international research scholar, works at the Institute for Research on Genetic Engineering and Molecular Biology in Buenos Aires. Joachim Frank is an HHMI investigator at Health Research Inc., at the Wadsworth Center in Albany, New York.

"The Institute's support of these scientific leaders in their home countries encourages those nations' most creative researchers, strengthens their research environments, and provides vital educational opportunities for aspiring scientists."

Levin told Frank of his work on Chagas and his need to know more about the structure of the parasite's ribosome (the site of protein synthesis in the cell). Frank, it turns out, was a pioneer in the analysis of ribosome structures. The partnership formed that day resulted in the solving of T. cruzi's unusual ribosome structure. This research was published July 19, 2005, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In a separate initiative sponsored by HHMI's international program, the Institute plans to announce later this year a new round of grants for biomedical research scientists working in the Baltics, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Ukraine. The Institute is also conducting a competition at present that will award 5-year grants to promising Canadian and Latin American scientists who are doing basic biomedical research.

ALEX ANDRIANOPOULOS University of Melbourne Melbourne, Australia		YUESHENG LI Hunan Institute of Parasitic Diseases Yueyang, China
MICHELE MARIE BARRY University of Alberta Edmonton, Canada		SUSANA LÓPEZ* National Autonomous University of Mexico Cuernavaca, Mexico
GABRIELLE T. BELZ The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research Melbourne, Australia		HUGO D. LUJAN* School of Medicine, National University of Córdoba Córdoba, Argentina
CHARLES BOONE* University of Toronto Toronto, Canada		VILMA REGINA MARTINS Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research São Paulo, Brazil
JEAN-LAURENT CASANOVA University of Paris René Descartes Paris, France		GEOFF MCFADDEN* University of Melbourne Melbourne, Australia
PASCALE FRANÇOISE COSSART* Institut Pasteur Paris, France		GRANT MCFADDEN University of Western Ontario London, Canada
ALAN F. COWMAN* The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research Melbourne, Australia		ROBERT MÉNARD* Institut Pasteur Paris, France
BRENDAN CRABB* The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research Melbourne, Australia		SHULAMIT MICHAELI* Bar-Ilan University Ramat-Gan, Israel
CHRISTOPH GEORG FRITZ DEHIO University of Basel Basel, Switzerland		VALERIE MIZRAHI* University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Johannesburg, South Africa
ABDOULAYE DJIMDÉ University of Bamako Bamako, Mali		MARIA MANUEL MOTA University of Lisbon Lisbon, Portugal
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