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Our recently concluded competition will bring 43 scientists into our ranks over the next several months, all at early stages in their careers. Many represent fields of research that lie at the vibrant edges of biomedical science and have not been highly represented in HHMI. Significantly as well, they include scientists at five institutions that do not currently have an HHMI investigator.
Almost a quarter of the new investigators fall outside traditional biological disciplines and are drawn from the fields of chemistry, physics, computer sciences, engineering, and geomicrobiology. And the label “traditional” hardly applies to the other scientists we selected. Whether their research focuses on dissecting the attributes of deadly pathogens, parsing the components of neural circuits, or devising novel ways to glean secrets of human disease from model organisms, they bring fresh thinking to challenging problems in biomedical science. They will be welcome additions to the Hughes community.
The promise embodied by these new investigators—and the continued creativity of their colleague scientists at HHMI, who as of May include 10 new members of the National Academy of Sciences—prompt me to reflect on two related themes: mentoring and independence.
On March 31, HHMI lost one of its stars, Stanley J. Korsmeyer, M.D. While in his mid 30s, and already an HHMI investigator, Stan made pivotal discoveries that led to the identification of key genetic mechanisms governing apoptosis, or programmed cell death. Stan’s research revealed how cancer cells escape death by apoptosis and pointed the way to new therapies. In fact, 6 weeks after Stan’s death from lung cancer, Nature published preclinical studies showing that a compound that inhibits proteins in the Bcl-2 family shows promise for lung cancer treatment. Stan and his frequent collaborator, Craig Thompson, a former HHMI investigator and now chair of the HHMI Medical Advisory Board, were among the authors.
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