Howard Hughes Medical Institute

03/11/2026

Second- or third-year PhD student in biological or biomedical sciences? Get ready — applications for our Gilliam Fellows Program open Sept. 1! Robust research support, incredible scientific community, & tailored professional development that can transform a PhD journey. bit.ly/4bjdTmr

03/07/2026

A new electronic implant system created by Freeman Hrabowski Scholar Juan Alvarez & colleagues helps lab-grown pancreatic cells mature & function properly. "Just like pacemakers help the heart keep rhythm, controlled electrical pulses can help pancreatic cells develop and function the way they’re supposed to,” says Alvarez. This provides a potential new pathway to replace damaged pancreatic tissue in patients with diabetes: bit.ly/4b16OHn.

03/05/2026

No rabbits, no top hats — just Gilliam Fellow Axel Vera leveling up on the standard poster session with a little sleight of hand. We guarantee you've never heard an anti-CRISPR (used to help control & improve precision gene editing) explainer like this before, & it's ... magic 🪄.

03/04/2026

These colorful muscle fibers tell a beautiful story of repair, & point to a potential approach to treating Duchenne muscular dystrophy — a rare, debilitating, & fatal disease. In DMD, a protein that helps muscle cells stay strong is missing. Here, UCLA researchers Courtney Young, Melissa Spencer & April Pyle have used a CRISPR-Cas9-based therapy to repair a patient's DMD gene & restore the missing protein (green).

03/02/2026

Behold the (charming) face of a fruit fly that helped HHMI Investigator Amita Sehgal and team uncover how sleep acts as a critical "cellular housekeeper," keeping our neurons healthy, and so much more. Their findings could drive a better understanding of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, which are commonly associated with disordered sleep. “We are super excited about our research right now,” Sehgal says. “We feel like we’re sort of really starting to crack the whole sleep thing.” bit.ly/3ZKNFnK

Image: Blood cells circulating in the head of a fruit fly. Courtesy of Bumsik Cho.

02/24/2026

By uncovering the origins of a group of rare immune cells called Thetis cells — which help our immune systems learn to identify microbes & foods that are helpful, not harmful — Gilliam Fellow Yoselin Paucar Iza & Freeman Hrabowski Scholar Chrysothemis Brown are unlocking the cells' potential to help treat, or even prevent, food allergies & autoimmune diseases: bit.ly/4cnQpii.

02/20/2026

🕸️ Spider web or a cell’s internal structure? This vibrant network of actin filaments — captured by HHMI Investigator Xiaowei Zhuang — helps the cell keep its shape, & was imaged using super-resolution STORM microscopy, which shows details far beyond what standard microscopes can see. The colors show depth: Blues and purples are closer to the surface, while greens and yellows are farther away.

02/14/2026

A sophisticated poem for our Valentine's crushes, zebrafish & fruit flies — two small-but-mighty model organisms critical to basic science. Fast to reproduce, genetically similar to humans, & key to potential breakthroughs in understanding development & disease. What's not to love?! 💘

02/12/2026

Thrilled to see HHMI Investigator Darrell Irvine among this year’s honorees for his innovative work strengthening the immune system’s ability to fight disease, which has enhanced vaccines against HIV and cancer: bit.ly/4aIHJBU.

New treatments developed for cancer, international funders stepping up as the U.S. government steps back, customized treatments for genetic disease. This year, the global health community has been busy. This community of scientists, doctors, advocates, educators, policy-makers, and other leaders are fighting for your health.

Meet the TIME100 Health honorees: https://time.com/collections/time100-health-2026/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_content=110226

Credit: Time photo-illustration

02/09/2026

What if the answers to Alzheimer’s & schizophrenia lie in glia — the cells that support neurons — not neurons themselves? Join "SciShow Field Trips” & HHMI Tangled Bank Studios inside HHMI Investigator Beth Stevens' lab to see how these long-ignored brain cells may help us better understand neurological diseases: bit.ly/4kjqU3R.

02/05/2026

Kids who grow up in biodiverse environments (e.g. around pets, farms, and nature) tend to have fewer allergies—& now we know why. HHMI Investigator Ruslan Medzhitov & colleagues at Yale University have found early exposure to diverse microbes creates broad immune memory, plus an antibody that helps block allergic reactions later in life: bit.ly/4rGC59h

02/03/2026

🎶 Sound on! How does a young zebra finch’s song connect to treating Parkinson’s? Freeman Hrabowski Scholar Vikram Gadagkar & colleagues have identified a dopamine-based neural signal in zebra finches that could offer insights into motor learning in humans — especially those with conditions like Parkinson’s, in which dopamine disruption affects key motor skills such as walking and speech. hhmi.news/4tndfNg