This July, members of an outstanding group of biomedical scientists came together for the first time to learn about one another’s work and discuss broader issues affecting the future of scientific discovery. Since 1976, scientists at the early stages of their careers have been selected as Rita Allen Foundation Scholars,…

Hilary Coller caught the biomedical research bug early—as a junior high school student she took part in research that resulted in a first-author scientific publication. Coauthored with her father Barry Coller, a blood and vascular biologist at The Rockefeller University, the paper explored a…

In 1990, Senthil Muthuswamy was a young graduate student in biology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He had just moved to Canada from his native India after completing a bachelor’s degree in agricultural sciences at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University and a master’s degree in genetics at…

Tom Maniatis launched his scientific career by experimenting with early ultraviolet lasers to scrutinize the development of chicken embryos. This undergraduate research experience, at the University of Colorado, Boulder, “taught me the importance of bringing technological developments to important biological problems,” Maniatis recalls. Tom Maniatis(Photo:…

Early in his research career, Jeffrey Macklis set out to unite two seemingly disparate fields of neuroscience: neural development and brain repair. At the time, this was an unorthodox idea, and “being a brain repair guy was a little shady,” he says. Still, he thought, “if we figured…

Early-career biomedical researchers to examine the underpinnings of human behavior, cancer and chronic pain The Rita Allen Foundation has named its 2016 class of Rita Allen Foundation Scholars, recognizing seven young leaders in biomedical science whose research holds great promise for revealing new pathways to advance human health.

A chance introduction to the tricky issue of water pollution first attracted Diana Bautista to science. Growing up in Chicago, she was the first member of her family to finish high school, and she began college as a fine art major. But she floundered, and soon dropped out…