The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) will award $16.25 million in grants to biomedical researchers from Canada and the Latin American countries of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Venezuela.

The grants are part of the institute's International Research Scholars Program. HHMI is searching for leading scientists working in such fields as bioinformatics, epidemiology, genetics, neuroscience and virology.

Recipients will receive from $50,000 to $90,000 a year for five years. Interested researchers must apply online by November 15. A review process will follow and the awards will be made in December 2001.

Recipients must be working full time at nonprofit scientific institutions in the six nations, must have made "significant contributions to biomedical research and have significant publications in international English-language, peer-reviewed scientific journals."

The institute's previous international programs included $10.8 million awarded in 1991 to researchers in Canada and Mexico, and $15 million awarded to scientists in Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Venezuela in 1997.

HHMI also has two separate programs under way that will award a combined $29 million to scientists in the Baltics, Central and Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union, and to researchers around the world who are studying infectious and parasitic diseases.

The full version of this news release can be found at:
http://www.hhmi.org/grants/international/
about/latamcan.htm