Harvard Benefits From New Grants

Five Harvard scientists will have more freedom and greater resources to pursue their research after receiving the first grants awarded by Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s new Early Career Scientist program.

Among the 50 nationwide grant recipients, announced last Thursday, are Bradley E. Bernstein, who conducts cancer research at the Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital; Kevin Eggan and Konrad Hochedlinger, both researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute; Amy J. Wagers of the Joslin Diabetes Center; and Rachel I. Wilson ’96, who runs a neurobiology lab at Harvard Medical School.

The grant provides each researcher with salary, benefits, and a research budget of over $1.5 million for a six-year period. It also pays for the cost of research space and equipment, according to a news release on the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Web site.

Unveiled in March of 2008, the Early Career initiative’s purpose is to help young scientists concentrate on their research by removing concerns about funding.

“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,” said Howard Hughes Medical Institute President Thomas R. Cech in the news release.

Each of the recipients, drawn from 33 institutions across the country, have led their own research laboratories for three to five years, putting them at a career stage that the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Web site called the “most productive—and most vulnerable.” Because researchers’ start-up funds from their host institutions typically dry up after this duration, the pressure to secure federal grant money can lead to safe research proposals at the expense of bolder and potentially ground-breaking projects.

Wagers, who studies how blood-forming and skeletal muscle-forming stem cells may be harnessed for regenerative medicine, called the grant “enabling” in today’s tight funding climate.

“It gives me the opportunity to pursue new directions and be creative in my science,” Wagers said.

The other Harvard-affiliated grant recipients—Bernstein, Hochedlinger, and Wilson—did not return requests for comment for this article. Eggan was on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

The new grants come at a time when scientists are most in need of support. After five years of flat funding from the National Institutes of Health—the largest source of money for academic research—coupled with rising inflation, scientists are now scrambling for funds from President Obama’s two-year stimulus package, which includes $10.3 billion for the National Institutes of Health and $3 billion for the National Science Foundation.

The Early Career program drew more than 2,000 applicants whose work directly related to biology or medicine, according to the Howard Hughes news release. Massachusetts-based scientists received the most grants nationwide, with three going to MIT and two to the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. Another round of Early Career grants is expected in 2012.

In addition to providing grant programs, Howard Hughes—a non-profit biomedical research organization headquartered in Chevy Chase, Md.—conducts research in collaboration with universities, medical centers, and other research institutions nationwide.

—Staff writer Liyun Jin can be reached at ljin@fas.harvard.edu.