The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has announced that it hopes to identify a new cohort of as many as twenty-five biomedical researchers through a national open competition. The initiative represents an investment of approximately $150 million over the next five years.

The HHMI Investigator competition will be open to basic researchers and physician scientists who hold a tenured or tenure-track position in biology or biomedical disciplines — including plant biology, evolutionary biology, chemical biology, biomedical engineering, and computational biology — at any one of more than two hundred eligible institutions. Selected researchers will receive a five-year appointment as an HHMI investigator that will be renewable pending review.

Last held in 2012, the competition provides each HHMI investigator with full salary, benefits, and a research budget for their initial five-year appointment. The institute also will cover other expenses, including the purchase of critical equipment. Finalists will be announced in 2015.

"The best discoveries in science aren't predictable," said HHMI president Robert Tjian. "One of the things that sets HHMI apart from other organizations that support biomedical research is that we free our researchers to follow their scientific instincts — to follow things that pop up unexpectedly."