While we usually try not to brag, sometimes it’s hard not to: Five of the 27 newly named Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators are former winners or finalists of the Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science!  A highly coveted honor, scientists appointed HHMI Investigators are provided generous, long-term flexible funding that allows them to pursue their studies without the constraints of more conventional grants.

Not only were five of our prize alumni selected, but close to half (48%) of the 2013 HHMI Investigators are foreign-born – a clear demonstration of the important role immigrant scientists play in upholding the quality of scientific research in America.

Harmit Malik, Principal Investigator, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Vamsi Mootha, Professor, Harvard Medical School

Evgeny Nudler, Julie Wilson Anderson Professor of Biochemistry, NYU Langone Medical Center

Michael Rape, Associate Professor, University of California, Berkeley

Aviv Regev, Associate Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Please join us in congratulating our prize alumni and the rest of the HHMI Investigators by taking a moment to learn more about their research, which ranges from studies of ancient viruses to explorations of how songbirds learn to sing.  If you know any promising, foreign-born biomedical scientists not more than 38 years old, or are one yourself, applications are now open for the 2014 Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science.  (And in the arts, we are accepting applications in Design!)