Duke researcher can sing a winning tune – He receives prestigious Hughes Institute honor

Durham, N.C. — Erich Jarvis, a Duke University Medical Center neurobiologist, is one of 56 scientists selected for a $600 million research program funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Jarvis is best known for his pioneering research into the study of birdsong and the relationship to learning.

More than 1,000 scientists applied for program that names new members every three years. Branded as the “nation’s most creative biomedical scientists” by the Hughes Institute, the researchers will “tackle their most ambitious, risky research plans.”

Forty-two men and 14 women from 31 institutions made the Hughes Institute list.

“These 56 scientists will bring new and innovative ways of thinking about biology to the HHMI community,” said Thomas Cech, president of institute, in a statement. “They are poised to advance scientific knowledge dramatically in the coming years, and we are committed to providing them with the freedom and flexibility to do so.”

Hughes Institute researchers are encouraged “to extend the boundaries of science” and work in such fields as microbiology, genetics and immunology plus bioengineering and “the ecology of infectious diseases.”

“His ability to design ways to study the mystery of learning through birdsong, through molecular, neural, and behavioral systems simultaneously, deserves this high level of recognition,” said .Dean Nancy Andrews of the Duke School of Medicine. “We look forward to the Jarvis laboratory’s future findings about precisely how our brains are able to learn.”

Six other current Duke scientists are currently Hughes Institute investigators.

Jarvis, 43, made the final list through a selection process that for the first time was a general competition based on direct applications. Institutional approval for applicants was not required as it had been inn the past. The Hughes Institute said it made the change “to ensure that candidates are drawn from a broader and deeper pool of scientists.”

Currently, some 300 Hughes Institute investigators are employed at Hughes Laboratories spread among 64 institutions.

The Hughes Institute, a non-profit medical research organization, has invested more than $8 billion in research over the past 20 years. The late Howard Hughes founded the organization, which is based in Chevy Chase, Md.

Jarvis, who had been nominated for the Hughes program in the past, and the other investigators become employees of the Hughes Institute but remain based at their respective institutions.

“My lab manager handed me an express mail envelope with the news,”Jarvis said in a statement. “I tried to prepare myself again for bad news, but I was hopeful. Last time, I had received the news in a standard mail envelope. Winning this year made me especially happy.”

Jarvis is studying how language is learned, comparing songbirds, other birds and mammal species and humans.

“I have come to the conclusion that the brain pathways involved in the singing of songbirds have functional similarities to the pathways involved with speech in humans,” Jarvis said.

Jarvis received an undergraduate degree in biology and mathematics from the City University of New York and a PhD in neurobiology and animal behavior at Rockefeller University. Earlier in his career he received awards from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation and numerous other honors.