September 27, 2004
HHMI, NIBIB/NIH to Invest Up to $35 Million in Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Programs
As biomedical science becomes more interdisciplinary, research
progress will depend on contributions from life scientists who are
familiar with the tools and ideas of the physical and computational
sciences and engineering. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)
and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
(NIBIB) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are joining forces
to provide both start-up funds and sustaining support for 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. NIBIB, a new NIH institute with broad,
interdisciplinary goals, will provide five additional years of support
to the HHMI grantees through peer-reviewed institutional training
grants.
“The HHMI-NIBIB partnership will capitalize on the different strengths of each organization.”
Thomas R. Cech
Building on work begun by the Whitaker Foundation, the National
Science Foundation, and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, HHMI and NIBIB
together have created a new model to support the initiation,
development, and maintenance of new graduate programs to provide
upcoming biomedical scientists with the cross-disciplinary knowledge
and skills they will need.
"This groundbreaking partnership between the NIBIB and HHMI will
produce researchers who are skilled in biomedical disciplines,
bioengineering, and quantitative sciences," said Elias A. Zerhouni, NIH
director.
In October 2004, HHMI will open a competition for up to 10 grants to
educational institutions, totaling as much as $1 million each. The
grants will be awarded in November 2005. All U.S. institutions that
grant Ph.D. degrees in the biological sciences will be eligible for the
three-year awards.
The HHMI-NIBIB partnership will capitalize on the different
strengths of each organization. “HHMI can provide flexible
support to catalyze the development of new, interdisciplinary
programs,” said Thomas R. Cech, president of HHMI. “The
NIBIB will sustain these young programs once they are developed, as NIH
does so well with traditional training grants.”
Roderic Pettigrew, NIBIB director, said, “NIBIB is excited to
enter into this historic alliance with HHMI to support training of the
biomedical scientist of the future, one skilled in interdisciplinary
research. These scientists will be better equipped to meet the complex
challenges of 21st century medicine.”
The new NIH Roadmap and recent reports from the National Academies
Convocation on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research and the
Association of American Medical Colleges' Graduate Research, Education
and Training Group emphasize the need for a new kind of graduate
education that will prepare scientists to work across disciplinary
lines to solve complex biomedical problems.
“We're looking for training programs that provide strategies
to eliminate or lower barriers between seemingly disparate scientific
disciplines,” said Peter J. Bruns, HHMI vice president for grants
and special programs.
The new graduate training program parallels HHMI's commitment to
bring together biologists, computer scientists, engineers, physicists,
chemists, and mathematicians to conduct collaborative research at
Janelia Farm, HHMI's new research campus now under construction in
Loudoun County, Virginia.
|
Cindy Fox Aisen
