AAMC Reporter: August 2006

Viewpoint: "Down on the Farm"

Kevin Moses, Ph.D., associate director for science and training, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Janelia Farm Research Campus

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is a medical research organization founded in 1953 that has become the nation's largest private source of support for biomedical research and science education. In 2005, the institute's endowment was $14.8 billion, supporting the disbursement of $717 million to "further the advance of basic biomedical science in the service of mankind." The institute supports 321 "HHMI investigators," who remain resident in their 67 American institutions. HHMI Investigators are leaders in biomedical science with 10 Nobel laureates among them (including HHMI President Thomas R. Cech, Ph.D.). The institute also supports 20 leading science educators ("HHMI Professors"), 110 leading scientists abroad ("HHMI International Scholars"), and several programs in science education.

In 1999, three HHMI leaders (Tom Cech and Vice Presidents Gerald M. Rubin and David A. Clayton) began to consider what new mechanisms the institute might use to support science. Their broad goal was to foster highly innovative research in areas of fundamental science that are ripe for breakthroughs but are held back by current technology. This would be achieved by bringing scientists from the physical, chemical, and computational sciences and mathematics into close collaboration with biologists. This innovative "greenhouse" of ideas would be fertilized by keeping research groups small, eliminating outside funding, and removing extraneous academic duties such as teaching and committee work. In 2001, the HHMI trustees committed to building a new research campus for this purpose at Janelia Farm, near Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C.'s Northern Virginia suburbs. After selecting the site, planning turned to the facility's physical design and to developing the scientific culture and research foci.

The well-known architect Rafael Viñoly worked with HHMI's institute architect Robert H. McGhee to create the campus. Their plan includes a large (approximately 750,000 gross square feet) "landscape" building that houses the laboratory, service, meeting, and administrative spaces; a 96-room conference hotel; and a 53-unit visitor housing village, all on a verdant 689-acre campus on the banks of the Potomac River. The labs feature a novel system of movable benches for rapid reconfiguration. Scientists' offices are placed on grassy terraces just outside the labs. The landscape building also houses many service spaces, the largest of which is a "high bay" that is roughly 300 by 100 by 40 feet. All in all, the campus is designed to provide our scientific programs with enormous flexibility.

Our culture aims to encourage and nurture innovative and collaborative research. As such, we have planned carefully to free scientists' time and insulate them from distraction — while avoiding isolation. The HHMI modeled Janelia's culture on forebears such as the British Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology (which pioneered such breakthroughs as the double helix, monoclonal antibodies, DNA sequencing, structure of proteins, confocal microscope, and other advances) and Bell Labs (where scientists developed the transistor, laser, and radio astronomy, among other things).

The HHMI has adopted several key ideas in this area: Research groups will be small (six people or fewer), collaboration will be rewarded, work will be directly funded, there will be no required teaching or committee work, and there will be extensive support services (a major data center, machine shops, and so forth). Most controversial, there will be no tenure! Instead, group leaders will be on a renewal cycle. After their first successful renewal, they will be free to take faculty positions in academia and to take their funding with them as HHMI Investigators.

To avoid isolation, we plan for an extensive system of scientific visitors — up to 100 at a time. These can include faculty on sabbatical, collaborators with our lab heads, and other project teams. In addition, we plan an annual series of about a dozen scientific meetings and workshops, as well as weekly seminar speakers.

As for where the research should actually focus, we used a process of consultation and symposia to determine two synergistic directions: the identification of general principles that govern how information is processed by neuronal circuits, and the development of imaging technologies and computational methods for image analysis. We believe that the conjunction of these two objectives will exploit the deliberately collaborative and interdisciplinary culture of Janelia Farm, as well as lead to rapid advances in highly significant fundamental science. Our grand objective, in the end, is no less than to understand the workings of the mind.

Janelia Farm is about to open for operations: Researchers will move into the landscape building this month.We have recruited 19 laboratory heads, many from tenured positions at leading institutions. By the end of 2009, we will have about 40 lab heads and a total of about 400 people. We have about a dozen scientific visitors coming in the next year, and there are a dozen conferences scheduled. This fall, we will begin recruiting graduate students for joint Ph.D. programs with the Universities of Chicago and Cambridge.

The new HHMI research campus at Janelia Farm is a bold experiment in an alternative style of scientific research. Careful planning, first-rate scientists, and committed resources ensure that this experiment is bold without being foolhardy.

For more information, visit the HHMI research campus at Janelia Farm Web site.

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