The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) reports that it has named 26 of the nation’s leading scientists as HHMI Investigators. HHMI will invest more than $300 million in this newest cohort over the next seven years.
The funding is designed to help pave the way for new scientific and biomedical discoveries in fields ranging from neuroscience to immunology to structural biology. The scientists come from 19 U.S. institutions and join HHMI’s current investigator community, comprising more than 250 scientists.
“HHMI is committed to supporting visionary scientists who are pursuing discoveries that will change our world for the better,” says Leslie Vosshall, PhD, HHMI vice president and CSO.
Each new HHMI investigator will receive roughly $11 million in support over a seven-year term, which is renewable indefinitely pending a successful scientific review. This support includes their full salary and benefits, a generous research budget, scientific equipment, and additional resources.
HHMI selects Investigators through a national open competition, which includes evaluation by an advisory panel of leading scientists as well as HHMI scientific leadership. Nearly 1,000 eligible scientists submitted applications during the competition. This year’s evaluation included a focus on research culture and mentoring, and highlighted individuals’ efforts to make science open and accessible to all.
To date, 34 current or former HHMI scientists have won the Nobel Prize, most recently, Carolyn Bertozzi in 2022 for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry. HHMI Investigators have long made significant contributions across many research areas, including biochemistry, molecular biology, plant sciences, cancer biology, cell biology and many other scientific disciplines, according to Vosshall.
New HHMI Investigators
• Jonathan Abraham, MD, PhD (Harvard)
• Dmitriy Aronov, PhD (Columbia)
• Janelle Ayres, PhD (Salk Institute for Biological Studies)
• Siobhán M. Brady, PhD (University of California, Davis)
• Edward Chouchani, PhD (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute)
• James J. Collins III, PhD (The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center)
• José R. Dinneny, PhD (Stanford)
• Steve Flavell, PhD (MIT)
• Lillian Fritz-Laylin, PhD (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• Mary Gehring, PhD (Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research)
• Lisa Giocomo, PhD (Stanford)
• Viviana Gradinaru, PhD (Caltech)
• Valentina Greco, PhD (Yale)
• André Hoelz, PhD (Caltech)
• Mehrdad Jazayeri, PhD (MIT)
• Gene-Wei Li, PhD (MIT)
• Steven McCarroll, PhD (Harvard)
• Dave Pagliarini, PhD (Washington University in St. Louis)
• Carrie Partch, PhD (University of California, Santa Cruz)
• Vijay G. Sankaran, MD, PhD (Boston Children’s Hospital)
• Sichen (Susan) Shao, PhD (Harvard)
• Samuel H. Sternberg, PhD (Columbia)
• Gabriel D. Victora, PhD (The Rockefeller University)
• Ilana B. Witten, PhD (Princeton)
• Michael Yartsev, PhD (University of California, Berkeley)
• Li Ye, PhD (Scripps Research Institute)
More information about HHMI’s Investigator Program can be found online at hhmi.org.
