Faculty win HHMI 'early career scientist' awards
Tirin Moore
Howard Chang
Karl Deisseroth
BY BRUCE GOLDMAN
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has appointed three Stanford researchers to six-year terms as the inaugural class of Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientists. These appointments cap a keenly competitive selection process, at the end of which 50 young investigators at the pinnacle of their productivity were chosen from among more than 200 institutions nationwide.
The three are Howard Chang, MD, PhD; Tirin Moore, PhD; and Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD. Chang and Moore are School of Medicine faculty members, while Deisseroth has a joint appointment with the medical school and the School of Engineering. The appointments were announced March 26.
The award provides $1.5 million per researcher for laboratory budgets over a six-year period. HHMI will also fund each investigator's full salary and benefits, along with some costs of critical research equipment for new projects. HHMI's total investment in the program comes to about $200 million.
Coming at a time of tight funding for research, such guaranteed long-term support could not be more welcome. It liberates young investigators at a particularly opportune moment: Just when they typically are being weaned from direct funding by their affiliated universities to federal research grants, the HHMI award supports their ability to undertake efforts carrying both high risks and high stakes.
It is unusual for more than two researchers per institution to receive an Early Career Scientist appointment. But a look at the Stanford recipients' work shows them to be especially creative.
Chang, associate professor of dermatology, will use the award to further his lab's investigation into the function of long, non-coding RNAs. Traditionally thought to be mere messengers carrying protein-coding instructions from DNA to the cell's ribosomal factories, some large RNA molecules break from that mold to carry out other tasks. Although no one knows exactly what those tasks are, previous research in Chang's lab indicated that these RNAs work to affect gene expression in the cell nucleus and may help cells know where they are in the body.
"We'd like to learn more about the structure of these long non-coding RNAs and where they are physically located on the genome," said Chang. "It's going to require a variety of efforts, some of which may require us to develop some completely new technologies. This is a wonderful opportunity to take a break from the grind of grant writing to try things that are a bit more challenging or risky. We can think in a longer time frame."
Chang is also interested in learning more about how genes are regulated over time. "We want to know how cells know whether they're young or old, and what gene expression programs are associated with aging," he said.
Moore, assistant professor of neurobiology, focuses on how networks of neurons in the brain selectively process visual stimuli. "You can't drive effectively if your attention keeps straying from the road," he said. It's necessary to ignore a majority of the visual information hitting the retina, while processing only what's relevant.
"For most of us, that's almost effortless, and we take it for granted," said Moore. But about 4 percent of children and close to that many adults in the United States have trouble doing that. "We don't understand the neurophysiological basis of those attention deficits. But in recent years, at least some progress has been made in identifying the neural circuits that control normal attention."
His HHMI appointment, Moore said, will free him up to pursue ambitious—and higher-risk—projects along this line of research.
"This award will help us continue to do high-risk, high-payoff science," agreed Deisseroth, associate professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. He is developing tools to analyze the circuitry of the brain with the goal of improving the understanding and treatment of psychiatric disorders. His lab has pioneered techniques for genetically engineering different types of brain cells so that they can be controlled with pulses of light.
Notification of the HHMI appointments reached the researchers in the form of a one-page letter. Chang at first viewed the letter with trepidation. "I thought it was a rejection letter," he said, only somewhat tongue-in-cheek. "I had to go in my office and shut my door so my students wouldn't see me cry." Happily, his fears were unfounded.
Writers Krista Conger and David Orenstein contributed to this report.
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