Clodagh O'Shea, an associate professor in the Salk Institute's Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory, is among the first recipients of a grant from the Faculty Scholars Program, a new partnership of Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Simons Foundation for early career researchers whose work shows the potential for groundbreaking contributions in their fields. O'Shea is one of 84 Faculty Scholars who will receive $100,000-$400,000 per year over five years to support their pursuit of innovative research. The program's support enables O'Shea, who has made dramatic progress in building selectively replicating cancer-killing viruses as well as visualizing chromatin, to further refine her genetic machines and designs.

Helmsley-Salk Fellow Jesse Dixon is among 16 scientists nationwide to receive the Director's Early Independence Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to pursue promising and innovative research. Dixon will receive $1.25 million in funding over 5 years to delve into how the genome folds into three-dimensional configurations known as higher-order structure, and the implications of those structures for human disease and health. He is the third Salk Fellow to receive the prestigious award since it was established in 2010.

Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte has been awarded a 2016 Pioneer Award, a highly coveted grant that supports the most innovative biomedical research, for his work in stem cell biology and regeneration. The grant will fund Izpisua Belmonte's lab in attempting to generate functional primate organs and tissues in a large animal host, the pig, using novel stem cell technologies his team has developed and recently discovered gene-editing technologies. This grant will award at least $2.5 million in direct costs over 5 years. 

Salk Associate Professor Sreekanth Chalasani has been awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative for developing a way to selectively activate brain, heart, muscle and other cells using ultrasonic waves, which could be a boon to neuroscience research as well as medicine.

The Board of Trustees for the Salk Institute has approved the appointment of Martin Hetzer, a professor in the Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory, to the position of Vice President and Chief Science Officer, effective October 1. Under the direction of the Institute president, and in conjunction with the Research Advisory Committee, Hetzer will provide leadership in developing and implementing Salk's overall scientific strategy, as well as overseeing research operations in support of this strategy. Hetzer, who is also Salk's Jesse and Caryl Philips Foundation Chair, will continue to serve as principal investigator in the Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory.

The first Melvin Cohn Award for Best PhD/Postdoc Study was presented earlier this month during the La Jolla Immunology Conference held at the Salk Institute. Hiutung Chu from the California Institute of Technology was chosen from among 40 applicants to receive the award for her work on gene-microbiota interactions and how they contribute to the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease. Established to recognize scientific innovation and impact of early career scientists, specifically graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, the award is named for Cohn, a founding fellow of the Salk Institute and professor emeritus who conducted pioneering studies on the immune system.