- Written by Will Snow
Two more Stanford researchers included in the HHMI Investigator Program
The HHMI Investigator Program is an impactful program that funds research at over 70 academic centers. Stanford now has 22 researchers in the program.
Two Stanford University researchers are among 26 scientists from 19 institutions newly appointed as Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators, the institute announced today. They were chosen through a competitive selection process from a pool of nearly 900 candidates.
The two Stanford researchers are Joanna Wysocka, MD, PhD, an associate professor of chemical and systems biology and of developmental biology in the School of Medicine, and Krishna Shenoy, PhD, a professor of electrical engineering in the School of Engineering.
HHMI provides each investigator with a full salary, benefits and a research budget over their initial five-year appointment, which may be renewed for additional five-year terms. The institute will also cover other expenses, including research space and the purchase of critical equipment.
Joanna Wysocka
The biological question that is driving the research of the Stanford Wysocka Lab in the long-term is understanding the epigenetic basis of vertebrate development and differentiation. Although each cell of a multicellular organism is a progeny of a single zygote, and shares the same genetic information with every other cell, cells differentiate to specialized forms such as skin, muscle or nervous cells. The group's research focuses on understanding the mechanistic basis by which covalent histone modifications regulate gene expression patterns during vertebrate development and differentiation. A second major area of interest involves chromatin regulation in embryonic stem cells (ESCs), molecular basis of pluripotency and role of histone methyltransferases in cell fate decisions.
Krishna Shenoy
The Stanford Shenoy group conducts neuroscience, neuroengineering, and translational research to better understand how the brain controls movement, and to design medical systems to assist people with movement disabilities.
HHMI is an example of a Foundation having significant impact as a research funder of translational research.
updated 161002.11