Dr. Jeannette Tenthorey of Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has been named as one of 15 “exceptional early career scientists” by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and will receive eight years of financial support through its Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program.
Now in its second year, the Hanna H. Gray program was designed by HHMIto spot and support future leaders in academic research. The grants of up to $1.4 million are designed to help research centers recruit and retain young women as well as underrepresented minorities pursuing careers in the life sciences.
“I’m delighted by this huge honor conferred on Jeannette. She is completely deserving of it,” said Fred Hutch evolutionary biologist Dr. Harmit Malik, who hired Tenthorey as a postdoctoral research fellow last year. Malik and his team study how the competition between microbes, such as bacteria and viruses, and the hosts they infect drives evolutionary changes in the genes involved in these contests.
“She is creating an ambitious research program in exploring new frontiers in host–pathogen interactions,” Malik said. “I am excited that we will get a front-row seat for her discoveries over the next few years.”