CLEVELAND -- The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has selected a faculty member at Case Western Reserve University's School of Medicine as a Hughes assistant investigator. Matthew Warman is one of 48 scientists chosen in a national competition by HHMI and is the only Ohio researcher among the group. HHMI is one of the nation's largest medical research and philanthropic organizations.
Warman is the second CWRU researcher to hold this distinction. Three years ago, Sanford Markowitz, the Ingalls Professor of Cancer Genetics at CWRU, was named a Hughes investigator.
"I feel privileged to have received excellent mentoring throughout my career, to enjoy wonderful collaborations, to be able to learn from my patients and their families, to have the love and support of my own family, and to be surrounded by outstanding colleagues and students," said Warman. "I am honored to have been selected by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. I hope that our work here at CWRU and University Hospitals of Cleveland will improve human health through our studies of rare and common human genetic diseases."
Warman, who is an assistant professor of genetics and pediatrics, has been with CWRU since 1995. He also is a clinical geneticist in the Center for Human Genetics at University Hospitals of Cleveland.
He holds research grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Arthritis Foundation, and the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation. His research concerns genetics and skeletal and joint disorders.
HHMI will fund Warman's research and laboratory. HHMI enters into long-term research collaboration agreements with universities and other academic research organizations where its investigators hold faculty appointments.
HHMI expects to spend between $500,000 and $1 million annually for each of its new investigators, including support to the host institutions for graduate training, library resources, and other needs. HHMI's endowment is about $13 billion and its total budget for the current fiscal year exceeds $600 million.
Nathan A. Berger, dean of the School of Medicine and vice president for medical affairs, said, "This is truly an honor for Dr. Warman, the Department of Genetics, and the CWRU School of Medicine. Receiving an appointment from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute is tremendous recognition for the scientist and his work."
Earlier this spring Warman was selected as one of 10 U.S. researchers to receive the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Clinical Scientist Award in Translational Research. The award, worth $750,000 over five years, is one of Burroughs Wellcome's largest and most prestigious awards. The award will begin July 1. He will use the funds to support his research in arthritis, specifically to delineate the proteins and pathways that maintain human joints and their potential for treating heritable and acquired forms of the disease.
This is the second year in a row that a CWRU researcher has received this award. Last year, Dennis Templeton, associate professor of pathology, was one of nine researchers in the United States to receive it for his studies in colon cancer.
The Clinical Scientist Awards are intended to foster the development and productivity of mid-career physician-scientists who will strengthen translational research, the two-way transfer between basic science research and the treatment of patients, through their own studies as well as their mentoring of the next generation of physician investigators.
The Burroughs Wellcome Fund, located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, is an independent, private foundation dedicated to advancing the medical sciences by supporting research and other scientific and educational activities. The fund's current assets are in excess of $700 million and annual grants are approximately $47 million.