Harvard Medical School has announced 10 recipients of the Blavatnik Institute Early Career Investigator Awards. Totaling $5 million, these grants are designed to fuel high-potential research conducted by some of the most exceptional junior faculty members - those within the first decade of their careers as principal investigators - on the HMS Quadrangle.
- By STEPHANIE DUTCHEN
The awards were made possible by ongoing support from the Blavatnik Family Foundation that aims to spur scientific advancement and transform those discoveries into new therapies and new tools to diagnose, prevent, and treat disease.
"Thanks to the generosity of Len Blavatnik and the Blavatnik Family Foundation, we are enabling extraordinarily promising science at the most vulnerable stage in young investigators' careers," said HMS Dean George Q. Daley.
The competitive funds were awarded to fewer than 1 in 3 applicants, Daley reported. Proposals were reviewed by a committee of senior faculty members from multiple departments in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS.
"Applications that rose to the top had a compelling vision for the future of where their research could lead," said David Golan, dean for research initiatives and global programs at HMS and chair of the review committee. His office will administer the awards in conjunction with Quad department leaders.
Each awardee will receive up to $500,000 across two years.
Such support is vital for allowing early-career scientists to explore high-risk research paths and generate evidence that can then attract career-sustaining grants from entities such as the National Institutes of Health or private foundations. The funds are especially critical at a time when federal support for science in the United States and at Harvard University is threatened and the future is increasingly uncertain.
"The uncertainty of the past several months has been extremely difficult, and I am most concerned about our junior faculty and trainees," said Daley. "They're here at HMS because they're the best - dedicated, driven, creative, and audacious. We're doing everything we can to support them."
