Howard Hughes Medical Institute

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

02/02/2026

We're incredibly proud to join The Vilcek Foundation in recognizing HHMI Investigator Karolin Luger, whose dedication & groundbreaking nucleosome research has led to the development of innovative new drug treatments, including cancer medicines. hhmi.news/49VciEd

01/28/2026

"SciShow Field Trips" & HHMI Tangled Bank Studios take you inside the lab (and to the frontiers of gene editing) with HHMI Investigator Feng Zhang. Known for engineering CRISPR-Cas9 for use in human cells, Zhang's next breakthrough could be a tool with the potential to reach hard-to-access cells associated with neurological conditions like ALS & Huntington's disease. bit.ly/49JomIt

01/25/2026

Biosensors help scientists understand the brain & body like never before, but building one can take years. Researchers Alison Tebo & Srinivas Turaga at HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus want to change that. “It shouldn’t take you years to make a good biosensor; it should take months,” says Tebo. By harnessing AI, the team is building a tool that will speed up & simplify biosensor development for scientists everywhere — which has the potential to accelerate scientific discoveries. Their work is part of AI@HHMI, our $500 million effort to embed AI across the scientific process. hhmi.news/4rdhvNt

01/22/2026

Science teacher & HHMI BioInteractive Ambassador Samuel Washington Jr. draws students in with more than textbooks. “At first, kids love science — bugs, their bodies, the outdoors — but if you don’t tap into that natural curiosity, they lose it. To me, that’s the ticket to bringing education forward." Learn more about the exceptional teachers who make up our Ambassador community via BioInteractive and NEA Today's feature on Washington Jr.

New York's Samuel Washington Jr. blends culture, curiosity, and bowling to inspire students and break barriers in education.

01/20/2026

Created using fluorescence microscopy, this stunning image of an animal cell showcases thin, web-like fibers called vimentin — a protein that provides mechanical stability to cells and tissues, despite a single vimentin being ~7,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

📸: Andy Moore, HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus

01/18/2026

Driven by an experience familiar to many — watching parents age — HHMI Hanna Gray Fellow Melanie McReynolds wants to answer a fundamental question: How can we age healthier? The key may lie in better understanding NAD+ (a molecule that helps cells communicate & convert food into energy), and how its levels decline as we grow older. Via the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology: bit.ly/45tDuHB.

01/16/2026

Beyond the breakthrough: In 2013, HHMI Investigator Kevan Shokat unlocked the famously "undruggable" K-Ras protein, a discovery still driving new treatments for cancers with notoriously poor survival rates. But Shokat's lab isn't done yet, because while many patients initially benefit from these treatments, most eventually develop drug resistance. Today, Shokat & team are charting new therapies to outmaneuver drug resistance, and to explore whether treatments tailored to specific cancer mutations could also be used to prevent them: hhmi.news/3LwWaz5.