HHMI Today: 2000-Present

A team of 30 researchers, which includes HHMI investigator Patrick O. Brown and former HHMI-NIH research scholar Ash Alizadeh, both at Stanford University School of Medicine, report gene expression profiling using DNA microarray technology shows that a commonly diagnosed lymphoma is actually two distinct diseases.

An international team of researchers that includes HHMI investigator Dan R. Littman at New York University Medical Center discovers that HIV commandeers immature immune cells in the first step of its assault.

Led by HHMI vice president for biomedical research Gerald M. Rubin at the University of California, Berkeley, the Drosophila Genome Project Group, in collaboration with researchers at the Celera Genomics Corporation, unveil the complete genetic sequence for Drosophila, commonly known as the fruit fly.

HHMI investigator Frederick W. Alt and colleagues at the Children's Hospital in Boston identify a protein that protects against DNA damage.

HHMI awards $92 million in grants to strengthen research programs at medical schools, $50 million for undergraduate science education, and millions more for fellowships, precollege education, and international efforts to overcome infectious and parasitic diseases.

Peter J. Bruns is elected vice president for grants and special programs.

Researchers in the laboratory of HHMI investigator S. Lawrence Zipursky at the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues at the University of Michigan identify a new axon guidance receptor that can exist in more than 38,000 different forms.

HHMI investigator Norbert Perrimon and colleagues at Harvard Medical School report that three fruit fly genes are part of the machinery that governs the orderly arrangement and growth of epithelial cells.

Researchers led by Thomas A. Steitz, an HHMI investigator at Yale University, obtain high-resolution images of the ribosome and show that it can act as a ribozyme.

HHMI investigator Susan L. Lindquist and colleagues at the University of Chicago propose a new model describing how yeast prions assemble.

Researchers led by HHMI investigators Philip A. Beachy at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Matthew P. Scott at Stanford University School of Medicine show that the plant compound cyclopamine blocks the action of mutated genes that produce basal cell skin carcinomas.

HHMI investigator Stuart L. Schreiber and colleagues at Harvard University report that protein microarrays can measure the function of thousands of proteins simultaneously.

HHMI investigator John Kuriyan and colleagues at The Rockefeller University, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook use X-ray crystallography to pinpoint how the drug STI-571 works against chronic myelogenous leukemia.

HHMI announces a 10-year, $500 million plan for a biomedical science center that will develop advanced technology for biomedical researchers and provide a collaborative setting for a group of interdisciplinary scientists from around the world to work on cutting-edge, long-range research projects.

In the first move of its kind, the Institute announces a national competition for the appointment of physician-scientists as HHMI investigators.

A research team that includes HHMI investigator Louis J. Ptacek at the University of Utah finds a gene that causes a rare sleep disorder.

HHMI investigator Peter S. Kim and his colleagues at MIT's Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research synthesize a protein that jams the "grappling hook" that HIV uses to attach to target cells.

A computational method developed by HHMI investigator David A. Baker at the University of Washington and his colleagues predicts the three-dimensional structure of proteins with surprising accuracy.

New research by Jonathan S. Weissman, an HHMI investigator at the University of California, San Francisco, suggests that knowledge of the shape of a prion is critical to understanding which hosts it can infect.

HHMI hosts the first scientific symposium of the International Research Scholars since the inception of the program in 1991.

A research team led by HHMI investigator Richard Axel at Columbia University identifies a large family of fruit fly genes that could play a key role in understanding taste and odor perception.

HHMI investigator Jack W. Szostak and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital subject proteins derived from 400 trillion random DNA sequences to natural selection in the test tube.

The Institute awards $12 million for informal science education.

HHMI investigator Joseph S. Takahashi and colleagues at Northwestern University create a new tool for probing how the brain governs circadian rhythms.

Working independently, two HHMI research teams - Linda B. Buck and colleagues at Harvard Medical School and Robert F. Margolskee and colleagues at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine at New York University - find a candidate sweet taste receptor.

HHMI investigator Tyler Jacks of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues develop a cancer-prone strain of mice that develops lung cancer in much the same way that humans do.

HHMI investigator Carlos Bustamante and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, devise a technique to measure the mechanical force needed to unfold and refold several types of RNA molecules.

A research team led by HHMI investigator Roderick MacKinnon at The Rockefeller University discovers how potassium channels can slam shut, settling the question of how potassium channels manage to close milliseconds after opening and offering new insights into the design of drugs that more precisely control the channels.

HHMI investigator Susumu Tonegawa and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Vollum Institute identify an important molecular step in preserving long-term memories.

A research team led by HHMI investigators Stanley J. Korsmeyer and Todd R. Golub, both at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School, report DNA microarray studies that make strong case for existence of new type of leukemia.

HHMI awards $80 million in four-year grants to 44 universities across the U.S. in support of innovative new programs for undergraduate education.

H. Robert Horvitz, an HHMI investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is one of three scientists awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning the genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death. Horvitz shares the award with Sydney Brenner of The Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, and John Sulston of the Sanger Centre in Cambridge, England.

An international research team, which includes HHMI investigator George M. Shaw and senior author Beatrice H. Hahn at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, identifies a wild chimpanzee infected with simian immunodeficiency virus, strengthening the case that cross-species transmission brought about the HIV pandemic.

An international team of researchers led by HHMI investigator Bert Vogelstein at The Johns Hopkins University develops a technique that detects small amounts of a colon cancer-triggering gene in stool samples.

The Institute announces the appointment of its first 20 HHMI Professors. Each is a leading researcher who will receive $1 million over the next four years to bring the creativity they have shown in the lab to the undergraduate classroom.

HHMI investigator D. Gary Gilliland at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital is one of the senior authors of an article reporting the identification of two new drugs that inhibit a specific enzyme that drives development of the deadliest form of AML.

Led by Thomas M. Jessell, an HHMI investigator at Columbia University College of Physicians and Scientists, researchers use a precise mix of chemical signals to coax embryonic mouse stem cells to differentiate into functioning motor neurons.

Researchers led by HHMI investigators Charles L. Sawyers at the University of California, Los Angeles, and John Kuriyan at the University of California, Berkeley, identify 15 gene mutations that cause patients with chronic myeloid leukemia to develop resistance to Gleevec.

HHMI awards nearly $2 million to the European Molecular Biology Organization to help launch promising scientific careers in Eastern Europe. Two scientists from Poland, two from Hungary, and one from the Czech Republic receive the initial awards.

HHMI officially breaks ground for the Janelia Farm Research Campus to be built on a 281-acre parcel that lies along the Potomac River near Leesburg, Virginia. When completed in 2006, the complex will house a permanent research staff of between 200 and 300 scientists from various disciplines carrying out cutting-edge research and developing new tools for biological discovery.

HHMI investigator King-Wai Yau at Johns Hopkins University and his colleagues from Imperial College in London and Brown University make headway in understanding a second light-sensing pathway in mammals.

HHMI researchers, led by HHMI investigator Joan Massague at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, identify a "metastatic toolbox" of genes that spur the spread of breast cancer.

The Trustees of HHMI elect Gerald M. Rubin as vice president and director of the Janelia Farm Research Campus.

HHMI investigator David C. Page at MIT's Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, in collaboration with a team of 40 researchers, publishes the DNA sequence of the Y chromosome.

The Institute names 49 students from colleges and universities worldwide as winners of new predoctoral fellowships.

Researchers led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Kevin Campbell at the University of Iowa identify a novel target for drugs to treat cardiovascular disease.

HHMI investigators Tom A. Rapoport and Stephen C. Harrison, both at Harvard Medical School, have determined the first high-resolution structure of a type of channel that transports proteins across and integrates proteins into membranes. According to the researchers, the structure of the channel is providing new insight into protein transport.

Nineteen biomedical research centers are awarded nearly $10 million in new grants from HHMI to share science with their communities.

HHMI publishes Making the Right Moves, A Practical Guide to Scientific Management for Postdocs and New Faculty.

Researchers in the laboratory of HHMI investigator Douglas A. Melton at Harvard University announce that they have derived 17 new human embryonic stem-cell lines.

The Institute steps up its commitment to fostering international biomedical research with two new competitions for more than $30 million in research grants to biomedical scientists outside the United States.

The Institute announces a national competition for as many as 50 new scientists in the field of biomedical research. Nearly 200 universities, medical schools, and research institutes are invited to nominate their best scientists for the competition.

HHMI awards $49.7 million in grants to 42 baccalaureate and master's degree institutions in 17 states and Puerto Rico. The four-year grants, ranging from $500,000 to $1.6 million, support a variety of programs to improve undergraduate science.

HHMI awards $98,000 in scholarships to 14 students graduating this year from Loudoun County, Virginia, public high schools. The students, who have demonstrated academic excellence and interest in science, will use the awards to defray the costs of tuition, books, or other expenses at colleges they will attend in the fall.

A relatively new drug, Gleevec (imatinib), virtually halts the progress of chronic myeloid leukemia, but some patients develop resistance to it. HHMI investigator Charles L. Sawyers at the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues report the first description of a new compound, BMS-354825, which successfully sidesteps Gleevec resistance.

Former HHMI Trustee Helen K. Copley, a leading business executive and philanthropist, dies at age 81.

By mimicking a molecular switch that triggers cell death, researchers led by Xiaodong Wang, an HHMI investigator at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, and his colleagues kill cells grown in the laboratory from one of the most resilient and aggressive cancers—a virulent brain cancer known as glioblastoma. The new approach to tricking the cell-death machinery could be applied to a wide range of cancers where this pathway, known as apoptosis, has been inactivated.

Isolating stem cells from the skin of mice, researchers show that the cells have the power to self-renew and differentiate into skin and functioning hair follicles when grafted onto mice. The findings, published by HHMI investigator Elaine Fuchs and colleagues at The Rockefeller University, mean that the human equivalent of these stem cells—which scientists are also trying to isolate—could ultimately be used to regenerate skin and hair.

HHMI and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announce a partnership to support graduate training programs that integrate the biomedical sciences with the physical sciences and engineering. HHMI will award up to 10 three-year grants of as much as $1 million each to support the development and early phases of the interdisciplinary programs.

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute announces that the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to Richard Axel, an HHMI investigator at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Linda Buck, an HHMI investigator at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The scientists are honored for their discoveries that clarify how the olfactory system works.

Richard P. Lifton and Gerald I. Shulman, both HHMI investigators at Yale University School of Medicine, and their colleagues find that a single change in a person's DNA can contribute to a range of life-shortening risk factors, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and other metabolic disorders.

The first accurate mouse model of an aggressive childhood muscle cancer, alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, improves researchers' understanding of the cause of the disease and could accelerate the identification of new chemotherapeutics to treat the disorder. The model was developed by HHMI investigator Mario R. Capecchi at the University of Utah and colleagues.

HHMI investigator Roger Y. Tsien at the University of California, San Diego, offers science a dazzling new palette of fluorescent proteins that researchers can use to tag cells and observe a range of cellular processes. By splicing the genes for the fluorescent proteins into specific genes in the cell, researchers can detect when those genes are switched on to produce proteins.

Genes that control the size and complexity of the brain have undergone much more rapid evolution in humans than in non-human primates or other mammals, according to a new study by HHMI investigator Bruce Lahn at the University of Chicago and colleagues.

Certain rare gene mutations can contribute significantly to low levels of a beneficial form of cholesterol in the blood, researchers find. Low levels of this cholesterol, known as high-density lipoprotein (HDL), are a major risk factor for heart disease. The research leader is Helen H. Hobbs, an HHMI investigator at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

Researchers identify a new inherited syndrome that can cause the aorta to rupture earlier than other aortic aneurysm syndromes, such as Marfan syndrome. They find that the newly identified syndrome is relatively common, but can be corrected with surgery if it is diagnosed early. The research is directed by HHMI investigator Harry C. Dietz at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

HHMI announces the selection of 43 of the nation's most promising biomedical scientists as new HHMI investigators. The 32 men and 11 women are drawn from 31 institutions nationwide, representing traditional biomedical research disciplines, as well as engineering, physics, chemistry, and computer science.

In a stunning example of evolution at work, scientists find that changes in a single gene can produce major changes in the skeletal armor of fish living in the wild. The surprising results, from research led by HHMI investigator David M. Kingsley at the Stanford University School of Medicine, bring new data to long-standing debates about how evolution occurs in natural habitats.

Kurt L. Schmoke, Dean of the Howard University School of Law, is elected a Trustee of the Institute. Schmoke is an attorney who has dedicated much of his life to public service at all levels of government, including three terms as mayor of Baltimore.

HHMI invited more than 200 research universities to compete for $86.4 million in new grants to strengthen undergraduate science education. HHMI also is seeking programs that broaden access to science for women, underrepresented minorities, and non-science majors. The awardees will be announced in late spring, 2006.

The HHMI Trustees elect Joseph D. Collins as the Institute's first vice president for information technology.

Richard G. Darman, a financial executive with a distinguished career in public service, is elected a Trustee of the Institute. Darman is a partner of The Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm, and chairman of the board of AES Corp., an international power company.

HHMI announces the recipients of its first Gilliam Fellowships. Created by HHMI to honor the legacy of the late James H. Gilliam Jr., a charter Trustee of the Institute who spent a lifetime fostering diversity and opportunity in education and science, the fellowships provide support for Ph.D. studies in the life sciences to disadvantaged students, including underrepresented minorities.

Researchers map the unique patterns of neural activity produced by a wide range of odors, including vanilla, skunk, fish, urine, musk, and chocolate. Revealing these distinct but often overlapping patterns of neural activity represents a significant step in understanding how the brain translates complex signals from odorant receptors in the nose into odor perception in the brain, the researchers said. The research team was led by Nobel laureate Linda B. Buck, an HHMI investigator at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

HHMI investigator David Eisenberg at the University of California, Los Angeles and colleagues provide the first detailed look at the core structure of the abnormal protein filaments found in at least 20 devastating diseases, ranging from Alzheimer's to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human version of "mad cow" disease.

In discoveries that may open a new chapter in understanding and diagnosing cancer, HHMI researchers and their colleagues establish that tiny microRNAs provide a novel genetic route to the initiation of some forms of cancer.

To determine the impact of genetic alterations associated with human melanoma, Yakov Chudnovsky, an HHMI predoctoral fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine, and colleagues generate human skin tissue containing cells selectively engineered to express specific mutations found in melanoma. The findings offer clues to the oncogenic potency of several genes implicated in the development of melanoma.

Researchers find that the most common form of lung cancer may begin in a group of newly isolated lung stem cells. Working in a mouse model, the researchers isolate a novel type of lung cell that can divide into fresh copies of itself and into the two more specialized kinds of cells deep in the lung. The study was led by Tyler Jacks, an HHMI investigator at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

HHMI announces the selection of seven dynamic researchers to be the first group leaders at its Janelia Farm Research Campus. 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. The $500 million campus will open in 2006.

HHMI awards $17.5 million to 42 outstanding scientists in 20 countries to tackle the mysteries of the molecular and genetic mechanisms underlying infectious and parasitic disease such as tuberculosis, malaria, hemorrhagic fevers, and anthrax.

Researchers identify a telltale set of genes that causes breast cancer to spread and grow in the lungs, where cancer cells often flourish with lethal consequences. The researchers, led by HHMI investigator Joan Massagué at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, hope that their research will give clinicians a new set of molecular tools to test tumor biopsies for the activity of these specific genes and, in turn, should help guide treatment by permitting the early diagnosis of breast cancers that will ultimately metastasize to the lung.

HHMI announces that its Janelia Farm Research Campus has established partnerships with the University of Cambridge and the University of Chicago to launch an interdisciplinary graduate program.

New computer algorithms developed by HHMI investigator David Baker at the University of Washington are shown to predict the detailed structure of small proteins nearly as well as experimental methods, at least some of the time. According to Baker, the research shows that scientists are getting better at predicting a protein's structure from its amino acid sequence.

With grants of $1 million through HHMI's Med into Grad initiative, 10 universities will initiate fundamental changes in the way Ph.D. scientists are trained. They will use the three-year grants to develop innovative graduate education programs designed to produce a cadre of scientists with the knowledge and skills to conduct research at the interface between the biomedical, physical, and computational sciences.

HHMI and the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) singled out six outstanding scientists in the Czech Republic, Estonia, and Hungary to receive grants to help the scientists establish their first independent laboratories.

Sir Paul Nurse, president of The Rockefeller University, is elected a Trustee of the Institute. A distinguished scientist, Nurse shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Leland Hartwell and R. Timothy Hunt for fundamental discoveries concerning control of the cell cycle.

The Trustees elect Craig A. Alexander as the Institute's vice president and general counsel.

Twenty-eight outstanding biomedical researchers in the Baltics, Central and Eastern Europe, and Russia have been named HHMI international research scholars.

Six talented students from underrepresented groups in the science have been awarded the 2006 Gilliam Fellowships for Advanced Study.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute wants to shorten the time it takes to translate basic science discoveries into new medical treatments by challenging graduate schools to change the way students are trained. As a first step, HHMI has awarded $10 million to fund 13 innovative graduate programs that will introduce Ph.D. students to the world of clinical medicine.

A research team led by HHMI investigator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Edwin R. Chapman, has identified the cellular receptor for botulinum neurotoxin A.

A new genetic analysis of more than 12,000 individuals has found that a decrease in low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, of as little as 15 percent, sustained over the long term can dramatically reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. The study was carried out by HHMI investigator Helen A. Hobbs at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

HHMI researchers and their colleagues have discovered a new retrovirus in humans that is closely related to a cancer-causing virus found in mice. Their findings describe the first documented cases of human infection with a retrovirus that is native to rodents.

Joan A. Steitz, HHMI investigator from Yale University, and Ronald M. Evans, HHMI investigator from the Salk Institute, receive the prestigious Gairdner International Award.

Teaching often takes a back seat to research at leading American universities. Determined to change that fact, HHMI combed the country for leading research scientists who, through their teaching and mentoring, are striving to ignite the scientific spark in a new generation of students. Now, 20 of the best will receive $1 million each from HHMI to put their innovative ideas into action as HHMI professors at 18 research universities across the country.

Hal Dietz, HHMI investigator at Johns Hopkins University and team have discovered a commonly prescribed blood pressure medication may provide the first ray of hope in preventing potentially deadly complications of Marfan syndrome, a genetic disease that weakens the structural meshwork of blood vessels.

Today's academic and industrial research models have become far too conservative, according to Gerald M. Rubin, director of HHMIs Janelia Farm Research Campus. Rubin presents his provocative viewpoints on the state of biomedical research in a Leading Edge commentary article published in the April 21, 2006, issue of the journal Cell.

In the frantic world of fruitfly courtship, the difference between attracting a mate and going home alone may depend on having the right wing spots. Now, HHMI researcher Sean Carroll at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has learned which elements of fly DNA make these spots come and go in different species.

Seven HHMI investigators, along with an HHMI professor, an international research scholar, and a member of the scientific review board are elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Five current HHMI investigators, one trustee of the Institute, one member of the Institute’s scientific review board, and one HHMI international research scholar are among those honored with membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Researchers have greatly shortened the time it takes to create a mouse model of human liver cancer—going from about a year with standard techniques down to about one month with the new approach. Using this technology, HHMI scientists at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have already identified two genes that play a key role in driving the establishment of liver cancer.

HIV flips for membranes. That's the conclusion of new research from HHMI investigator Michael F. Summers and colleagues who have identified a new drug target that could defeat HIV's rapid evolution, the main mechanism of drug resistance.

A new light microscope so powerful that it allows scientists peering inside cells to discern the precise location of nearly each individual protein they are studying has been developed and successfully demonstrated by scientists at HHMI's Janelia Farm Research Campus in collaboration with researchers at the National Institutes of Health and Florida State University.

Jack E. Dixon, dean of scientific affairs at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, and member of HHMI's Medical Advisory Board, is named vice president and chief scientific officer.

HHMI researcher Charles S. Zuker and Nicholas J.P. Ryba at the National Institutes of Health and their team of researchers have identified the cells and the receptor responsible for sour taste, the primary gateway in all mammals for the detection of spoiled and unripe food sources.

HHMI recruits 10 additional scientists,—group leaders and fellows–to head research laboratories at its Janelia Farm Research Campus. The scientists selected in the latest recruitment effort will move to Janelia Farm during the late summer and fall of 2006.

Open For Discovery—after six years of intense planning, construction, and recruiting, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute opens its new scientific community at Janelia Farm Research Campus.

HHMI researchers find that a typical breast or colorectal tumor results from mutations in about 90 genes. Bert Vogelstein from Johns Hopkins leads the study.

HHMI investigator Jack Szostak at the Massachusetts General Hospital receives the 2006 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. He shares the prize with Carol W. Grieder of Johns Hopkins and Elizabeth H. Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco.

HHMI investigator Craig Mello of the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Stanford researcher Andrew Fire are honored with the Nobel prize for their discovery of RNA interference.

The Institute of Medicine honors the contributions of seven HHMI investigators and an HHMI professor.

Thirty-nine outstanding scientists in Latin America and Canada are named HHMI international scholars.

HHMI announces a new competition for the appointment of outstanding physician-scientists as HHMI investigators. The Institute expects to appoint 15 new researches by Fall 2007.

Neuroscientist Edwin W. McCleskey is appointed Scientific Officer to work at Headquarters to support the research of HHMI investigators in more than 300 laboratories across the nation.

Five HHMI investigators and an HHMI professor have received awards for scientific achievement from the National Academy of Sciences.

The first detailed images of an elusive drug target on the outer wall of bacteria may aid the design of novel antibiotics. The work was carried out by HHMI international research scholar Natalie C.J. Strynadka at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Studies of human tumor cells implanted in mice have shown that the abnormal activation of four genes drives the spread of breast cancer to the lungs. The research team was led by HHMI investigator Joan Massagué at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Jeremy Nathans, HHMI investigator at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and colleagues at Johns Hopkins and the University of California, Santa Barbara have conducted studies that have implications not only for the evolution of color vision, but also for the evolution of sensory systems in general.

Prestigious Gairdner International Award recognizes Thomas A. Steitz's pioneering work on the structure of the ribosome.

HHMI investigators Ronald M. Evans and Robert J. Lefkowitz are awarded the Albany Medical Center Prize.

A study carried out by Li-Huei Tsai, an HHMI investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has found that an enhanced environment restores memory in mice with neurodegeneration.

Ten HHMI investigators and two HHMI professors are among those honored with membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Eleven HHMI investigators are elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

HHMI helps 111 medical and dental students devote a year to research.

Researchers, including teams led by three HHMI investigators, have found that a much-studied gene helps nerve cells recognize one another and grow apart during neural development.

Gerald M. Rubin, HHMI vice president and director of the Janelia Farm Research Campus, and HHMI investigator Morgan Sheng are elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society.

Frank William Gay, who served as an HHMI Trustee from 1984 until his retirement in 2006, dies.

A new database reveals a 700-member stron