washington

Five young US biologists have been chosen as the first recipients of $1 million each by the W. M. Keck Foundation. They can use this money to pursue exciting ideas as they see fit, free of the restrictions that usually accompany research grants.

Bruce Clurman of the Fred Hutchinson Research Center in Seattle, Judith Frydman of Stanford University, Partho Ghosh of the University of California at San Diego, Phyllis Hanson of Washington University, St Louis, and Mark Gerstein of Yale University were informed last week that they are to receive the first five awards in Keck's programme. There were 24 nominations by various biomedical research centres.

Frydman, a 35-year-old who will use her award to investigate protein folding, says that it will offer far more flexibility than a grant from the US National Institutes of Health, for which an outline of the proposed work has to be planned in advance. “This will allow me to start asking new questions, where I'm not necessarily sure what is going to be the right approach,” she says.

Ghosh, a 36-year-old structural biologist, says his award will support “a lot of projects that a young professor might otherwise have difficulty taking on”. He added that his laboratory will investigate proteins that are developed by pathogens to breach the membranes protecting host cells.

The foundation launched the programme last year, after deciding that young biomedical researchers at the peak of their creativity were being hemmed in by the strings attached to conventional grants. It intends to select five more young professors for each of the next four years, spending $25 million in all. The awards are open to US citizens who have held faculty positions for no more than three years and who are investigating “fundamental mechanisms of human disease”.

According to William Butler, chancellor of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and chair of the advisory panel for the programme, they are also intended to address what he terms the “incredible funding pressures” at US medical schools caused by sharp reductions in hospital bed income.

The W. M. Keck Foundation was set up 45 years ago by the founder of the Superior Oil Company, and is now one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the United States, with $1.5 billion of assets.