Money in Medicine: The Howard Hughes Medical Institute

The Third Installment of NextGen's "Money in Medicine" Series

Continued from page 1

Investigators are afforded a great deal of freedom in working towards a long-term research goal. Promising individuals are selected and then encouraged to take risks in pursuit of large goals. "We fund people, not projects," Cech says. "This gives our investigators the freedom to switch fields - even dramatically - without getting 'prior permission.'" Paperwork and reporting are kept to a minimum, and investigators are regularly brought together, says Cech, "because we want the 'whole' of our program to be greater than just the sum of the parts." And despite the goal-oriented atmosphere and high level of freedom, investigators are still held closely-accountable for their work. As Cech puts it, "of course, every five years they face a very tough review panel, and they need to have a great 'story' to tell!"

Currently, most of the 300 HHMI investigators are scattered throughout 64 host institutions nationwide, but HHMI is also constructing a research center of its own. Slated to open in 2006, the Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia, will provide a permanent staff of researchers a home specially designed for science. The specific goal for Janelia Farm is to focus on neuronal circuits and computer imaging technology, fields where work could benefit significantly from an atmosphere of cooperation and collaboration. As with the investigators, the formula here is simple: put creative scientists in a highly collaborative environment with little bureaucratic oversight and encourage them to solve the biggest problems.

Thomas Cech understands the enormous potential - as well as the enormous risks - inherent in Janelia Farm. "By giving the scientists freedom, abundant resources, a highly interactive group of colleagues, and evaluating them on making a real impact rather than just publishing a lot of papers, we hope to nurture creativity. If we hire an excellent group of scientists who publish a lot of papers but never create anything completely new or crack one of the big, 'out-of-reach' problems of biology, we will have failed to achieve our goal."

Besides its $416 million annual investment in biomedical research, HHMI also operates the largest privately-funded education initiative in U.S. history, in an effort to improve national science education at all levels. Cech and HHMI understand the importance of education for improving the research world: "If you want to support the best biomedical research over the long haul," Cech says, "you have to worry about whether the next generation will be prepared. Science education is not done well in most American schools - so there's definitely an opportunity here!"

One specific focus for HHMI involves an effort to improve the quality of undergraduate science education in American colleges. HHMI started with a big-picture problem in undergraduate instruction: "We see a lot of large lecture classes, and even if the professor is terrific, the format often resembles a continuation of high school class work," says Cech. "There's a dearth of the sort of hands-on, open-ended inquiry that is what we practicing scientists do, what sucked us into science in the first place, and what keeps us engaged." Moreover, other facets of the existing university system can also work to discourage excellence in teaching. "Promotion, tenure, salary increases, and prestige are based mostly on a faculty member's success in obtaining large research grants and discovering new knowledge. Great teaching is appreciated, but secondarily."

With the problem identified, HHMI began asking teachers to take risks. As Cech relates, "We started the HHMI Professors program to support accomplished researchers who wanted to reinvent undergraduate science education at their universities - twenty experiments running simultaneously. Some of them are having freshmen and sophomores engaged in team research projects, learning the textbook stuff because they need to know it to plan and interpret their experiments rather than 'because it's going to be on the next exam.' Not all of these experiments are equally successful. So we're assessing, and seeing which approaches are sustainable and transportable to other universities." But the point is that the HHMI is making an impact on science education by doing - "by showing what works rather than demanding national reform." Much like with the investigator system and with Janelia Farm, it is through HHMI's willingness to take risks that new methods and discoveries are developed. By taking those risk and succeeding, HHMI can produce results that others can use, even if they could not have created them on their own. Says Cech, "If we've initiated something successful, and the federal government comes in and copies our program, it's time to declare victory and move on."

In other words, the risks pay off when sights are set high and real achievement is sought. The impact can be widespread when one is given the freedom to be creative. The Nobel-prize winning Cech has had his own personal experience with this kind of scientific freedom - a fact which can be reassuring for the shaky pre-med. "If you like science," he says, "but have a disappointing undergraduate research experience, don't give up! Different subfields of science require different skills, proceed at different tempos, and provide different day-to-day challenges and rewards. If you move to a different laboratory or a different field, you might find that it suits your personality much better. In my case, I became discouraged with physical chemistry, tried molecular biology, and never looked back. But the chemistry background is still empowering for a lot of my work.

Cech's story and that of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute share many themes. Freedom to create and take risks, interdisciplinary collaboration, hands-on education, exciting achievement... and Nobel prizes.

Chris Catizone is an Associate Editor of the Next Generation and a member of the Harvard College Class of 2006.