“We saw a tremendous opportunity for HHMI to impact the research community by freeing promising scientists to pursue their best ideas during this early stage of their careers,” says former HHMI president Thomas R. Cech. “At the same time, we hope that our investment in these 50 faculty will free the resources of other agencies to support the work of other outstanding early career scientists.”
Cech worked closely with Jack E. Dixon, an HHMI vice president and chief scientific officer, to shape the competition and hopes the funds will allow the scientists to take risks. For early career scientists, the pressure to secure federal grant money can lead to “safe” research proposals, he notes, to the exclusion of more creative ideas. In choosing the early career awardees, HHMI was guided by its trademark “people, not projects” philosophy, which values an individual’s personal, scientific, and creative strengths over his or her specific research proposals.
It’s a view shared by Cech’s successor, Robert Tjian. A biochemist who became an HHMI investigator at the University of California, Berkeley, while still in his 30s, Tjian has experienced firsthand the value of early career support. The freedom to ask bold questions and change direction when necessary is particularly valuable for young scientists, he says.
The scientists, who have led their own labs for two to six years, are located at 33 institutions across the country. They will receive full salary and benefits, as well as a research budget of $1.5 million over six years.
Many among them have already made major contributions to their fields. Some have developed entirely new research techniques; Stanford University’s Karl Deisseroth, for example, created a way to turn on groups of neurons with a pulse of light. Others, such as Columbia University’s Eric Greene, who taught himself single-molecule biophysics, have immersed themselves in fields in which they were never trained. Now, they have the means to apply the creativity for which they are known to their work without reservation.