A permanent research base for the HHMI

Abstract

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the United States’ largest medical research charity, is to establish a permanent research centre for the development of new technologies. Until now, the HHMI has supported individual investigators at US universities. The HHMI campus will be built near to Washington Dulles Airport in northern Virginia. It is envisaged that it will provide a multi-disciplinary environment for intensive collaboration between biologists, chemists, physicists and engineers, with a view to the development of new technologies such as microarray techniques. The campus will house ∼24 principal investigators and up to 300 support staff as well as the large number of visiting scientists expected to use the facility, at a cost of $500 million over ten years. The campus is expected to open in 2005. The new venture is seen as a key component of plans for a redevelopment of the charity's focus drawn up by HHMI president Tom Cech, who took over presidency of the HHMI early in 2000, and Cech appointees Gerry Rubin, vice-president for biomedical research, and David Clayton, vice-president for science development. D.S. & S.L.