The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the nation’s largest biomedical research foundation, announced today the appointment of 33 American scientists as investigators, and three of them are from the University of California, Berkeley.
The honor is a big deal for research scientists. Each new investigator receives roughly $9 million over a seven-year period; the amount is renewable pending a successful scientific review of the researcher’s work. The investigators maintain their faculty positions at their home universities or research institutions, but their salaries are paid by HHMI. There are now about 250 HHMI investigators around the U.S., and 22 of them are at UC Berkeley.
The new investigators are Greg Barton, Diana Bautista and David Savage, all professors of molecular and cell biology. They were selected from more than 800 eligible applicants.