Talented Latin American and Canadian scientists can find themselves handicapped by a lack of research support and infrastructure in their home countries. Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) will help even the playing field by supporting some of North and South America’s most gifted biomedical researchers.

HHMI is inviting scientists who have full-time appointments at nonprofit scientific research institutions in Canada, Mexico, and six South American countries to apply to become HHMI international research scholars. Eligible South American countries include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

The application deadline is September 14, 2005. Grants will be awarded in October 2006. Each five-year grant provides a total of $250,000 to $500,000.

“These grants are designed to support the research of talented scientists in their home countries,” said Peter Bruns, HHMI vice president of grants and special programs. “The quality of their research is the key criterion.”

The awards are for fundamental biomedical research on basic biological processes and disease mechanisms. Clinical trials, health education, and delivery of health care services are not eligible for funding.

HHMI recognizes the need to support not only individual scientists, but also the scientific environment in which they work, so part of each grant supports shared resources at the researcher’s institution. “Our goal is enriching the general scientific environment in the scholar’s department,” Bruns explained.

This is the fourth round of HHMI grants to scientists in Latin America, Mexico, and Canada. More than $40 million has been awarded previously to 114 scientists in the western hemisphere outside the United States. Many of these HHMI international research scholars have made notable achievements. For example, Marcelo Rubinstein of Argentina founded one of the premier mouse transgenics facilities in South America and is collaborating with Pedro Labarca to establish a similar facility in Chile. Peter St George-Hyslop of the University of Toronto discovered genes involved in Alzheimer’s disease, and Argentine Mariano Levin helped sequence the Trypanosoma cruzi genome.T.cruzi is the parasite that spreads Chagas disease, which cripples or kills tens of thousands of people annually in Central and South America and Mexico..

Since HHMI established its international grants program in 1991, scientists in 32 countries around the world have received awards totaling more than $100 million. In addition to Latin American and Canadian researchers, the Institute supports scientists in Eastern and Central Europe, Russia, and the Baltics, as well as parasitology and infectious disease researchers worldwide.