March 28, 2005|
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March 28, 2005 |
By Robyn L. Lamb Alex Kolodkin and Geraldine Seydoux, both professors at Hopkins, will join 14 other Hopkins scientists already receiving research support from the institute's prestigious investigator program. The Chevy Chase-based foundation, started in 1953 by billionaire Howard Hughes, said it will invest more than $300 million in biomedical research during the next seven years to support the new investigators' research paying for their salaries and providing financial support for their labs, equipment and some personnel. Last year the foundation, which has a $128 billion endowment, spent $573 million on biomedical research. "Hughes is really sort of a dream" said Kolodkin, a neurology professor. "It is a really great honor to be chosen from this committee, which is an extremely scary [high-profile] committee." He studies how proteins act as "guidance cues" for growing nerves, alternately repelling and attracting growth, to keep a developing nerve on the right track inside the body. His work which ultimately seeks to define fundamental principles of all such guidance cues in nerve growth could help researchers rebuild damaged nerves in cases of permanent nerve damage, including that caused in spinal chord injury. Being named a Howard Hughes investigator is an honor, said Kolodkin, but it brings more to his research than funding. "You really use this award to do experiments that are as creative as you can. And since you don't necessarily have to pass it through the standard NIH [National Institutes of Health] study section, you might have a little more leeway in asking questions that might be a little risky," he said. The award could allow Kolodkin, for example, to start nerve regeneration studies in his lab something he has not had the funds or expertise to do previously. Winners of the Howard Hughes award stay at their universities but become employees for a five-year period of the institute. After that, the renewal of their awards depends on peer-review evaluation of the creativity and originality of their work in relation to others in their field and their future research plans. Kolodkin and Seydoux were chosen from a pool of 300 candidates from universities, medical schools and institutes around the country. About 20 percent of the 43 researchers chosen come from the physical sciences, including chemistry and physics. A quarter of them, Kolodkin included, are in the growing field of neuroscience. Seydoux, a professor of molecular biology and genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, studies cell development in embryos. Maryland now has 18 Howard Hughes investigators, only one of whom was chosen as part of the institute's last competition in 2002. Of the 18 investigators in the state, 15 hail from Johns Hopkins, one from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and three from the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Boston, with 52 investigators, is the metropolitan area with the largest number of recipients. Copyright 2005 © The Daily Record. All Rights Reserved.
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