The Howard Hughes Medical Institute is awarding $92 million over the next four years to help 41 medical schools study ways to combine biomedical research and clinical treatment of patients. The money will also support the developing field of bioinformatics -- which uses computer science and molecular biology to analyze data, an HHMI press release reports.

The grants range from $1.6 million to $4 million. About 60 percent of the funding will help junior faculty members begin their research. A portion of the money can also be used to establish or improve shared research facilities, buy equipment and initiate collaborations among scientists and researchers, the press release reports.

A HHMI panel reviewed proposals from 105 medical schools -- of which 22 public and 19 private medical schools were chosen to receive grants.

Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., and the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine received the largest grants -- $4 million each. The University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine and the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences each received $3.8 million.

This round of grants is the second series of grants that HHMI has made to medical schools to help strengthen research. In 1995, HHMI awarded $80 million to 30 medical schools to help them with biomedical research. This latest round of grants brings HHMI's biomedical research grants to $172 million.

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