Mass. gains 10 Howard Hughes investigators

Ten scientists from Massachusetts were named Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators today, five from MIT alone and one from Boston University, marking a first for that institution.

Harvard has three and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and University of Massachusetts Medical School each have one new investigator. Fifty-six scientists from 31 research centers will be supported by $600 million over five years from the biomedical philanthropy as they continue to lead laboratories at their home institutions. The new appointments bring to 19 the number of HHMI investigators at MIT, the highest concentration at one location in the country, the institute said.

The new investigators and their interests are:

Boston University
-James J. Collins, engineering novel biological circuits

MIT
-Dr. Sangeeta N. Bhatia, tissue engineering, biomedical microdevices, and nanobiotechnology
-Catherine L. Drennan, proteins whose structure contains metal ions
-Darrell J. Irvine, drugs and vaccines that target the immune system
-Dianne K. Newman, coevolution of life and Earth
-Dr. David M. Sabatini, how cells, organs, and living creatures grow

Harvard:
-Danesh Moazed, how DNA packaging helps keep genes on or off
-Bernardo L. Sabatini, understand how synapses work
-Thomas Walz, electron microscopy in structural biology

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
-Dr. David S. Pellman, chromosome abnormalities and cancer

University of Massachusetts Medical School
-Phillip D. Zamore, how small RNAs guide the gene-silencing process known as RNA interference