"The HHMI Janelia Farm Research Campus took shape as a sketch on the back of a napkin and is now a reality."

Its foundation rests on the Institute's core belief that scientists who demonstrate creativity and imagination can make lasting contributions to benefit humanity when they are given flexible, long-term support and the freedom to explore.

As HHMI's first freestanding campus, Janelia Farm will provide a setting in which small research groups can explore fundamental biomedical questions in a highly collaborative, interdisciplinary culture. It will enrich and complement our flagship investigator program, which brings together more than 300 of the nation's most creative scientists to work in HHMI laboratories at distinguished universities, research institutes, medical schools, and affiliated hospitals. In fact, I fully expect a high degree of interaction among scientists who participate in each of these research programs.

We have established Janelia Farm's initial research focus: To identify the general principles that govern information processing by groups of neurons—in short, how the brain processes information—and to develop the necessary imaging and computational technologies. It will bring together biologists, computer scientists, engineers, physicists, and chemists in an environment free of traditional academic boundaries.

Success is far from assured. Yet I am sure of this: New opportunities will emerge and, as they do, Janelia Farm's focus will evolve. The name itself provides an excellent metaphor. After all, what's a farm? It's a place of fertile soil where crops are nurtured. A farmer chooses what to plant and then fertilizes and waters those crops to support a process of continual renewal. We will do likewise at Janelia Farm: Identify the best scientists, nurture their research in a fertile environment, and, through a process of renewal that mirrors the farmer's seasonal routine, establish a research culture that evolves and refreshes itself.

-- Thomas R. Cech, President, Howard Hughes Medical Institute