UT Southwestern faculty members named Howard Hughes inv...( DALLAS May 27 2008 Three researche...),Health

DALLAS May 27, 2008 Three researchers who originally joined the UT Southwestern Medical Center faculty as part of the institutions acclaimed Endowed Scholars Program in Medical Science are among 56 distinguished biomedical scientists nationwide who today were named Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators.

Dr. Lora Hooper, assistant professor of immunology, Dr. Youxing Jiang, assistant professor of physiology, and Dr. Hongtao Yu, associate professor of pharmacology, were named in a national competition by the institute, a philanthropic organization that promotes biomedical research.

Their appointments bring the number of HHMI investigators who are UT Southwestern faculty members to 13.

All three of the new HHMI investigators joined the UT Southwestern faculty as Endowed Scholars. That program was established in 1998 with $60 million in philanthropic funds to attract and retain the best and brightest medical investigators at the inception of their careers. Each receives four-year start-up funding to enable exploration and expansion of original ideas.

To have three of our outstanding young researchers named among the 56 new HHMI awardees is incredibly important, said Dr. Kern Wildenthal, president of UT Southwestern. Their selection is an honor for them, and the fact that we have more than 5 percent of the individuals chosen in this extremely rigorous national competition that involved hundreds of institutions is a great honor for our medical center as well. We are extremely grateful for the private philanthropy that enabled us to bring these talented investigators to UT Southwestern and launch their careers here.

One of the nations largest philanthropies, HHMI has in the past two decades invested more than $8.3 billion for the support, training and education of the countrys most creative and promising scientists. HHMI investigators are selected from among faculties of universities and academic medical cent
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