Persons trained as medical doctors have traditionally played an important role in advancing the frontiers of biomedical research. But the need to pay medical education debts and the competition for funding have pushed many potential researchers away from the laboratory and into clinical practice.

Enter the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. HHMI has just launched a postdoctoral research fellowship program to encourage clinically trained M.D.'s to pursue careers in research. Each year the program will support up to 25 fellows with annual stipends ranging from $35,000 to $50,000 and an additional $17,000 in institutional and personal allowances. The stipends run for three years and will be awarded to M.D.'s who have completed their clinical training and who wish to conduct research at the institution of their choice.

The Bethesda, Md.-based institute, established in 1953, has an endowment approaching $5 billion. Although it has funded a network of senior investigators for many...

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