The Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland, has announced the selection of twenty-seven biomedical researchers to be HHMI investigators and has committed roughly $150 million to their research efforts over the next five years.

Representing nineteen institutions from across the country, the latest cohort of HHMI investigators were selected for their scientific excellence from a group of 1,155 applicants. Through the program, they will receive their full salary, benefits, and a research budget.

Research topics to be explored by this year's investigators include how viruses living within the human body affect the immune system, the relationship between cells' resistance to degeneration and their susceptibility to cancer, how songbirds learn to sing, and what enables some animals to regenerate lost tissue and body parts. HHMI investigators can change the direction of their research, if necessary, and they have support from the institute to follow their ideas through to fruition — even if it requires many years.

"When it comes to research, HHMI takes the long view," said the institute's vice president and chief scientific officer Jack E. Dixon. "You have to have that in basic research because you have no way of knowing if someone's research is going to be transformative fifteen or twenty years down the line. We pick the best people we can find and then provide long-term, stable support so they can act quickly on their best research ideas."

For a complete list of this year's HHMI investigators, visit the institute's Web site.