Science Q&A
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What are the scientific objectives of Janelia Farm?
We pursue fundamental problems in basic biomedical research that are difficult to approach in academia or industry because they require expertise from disparate areas, they are too long-term for standard funding mechanisms, or they are outside the current priorities of other funding agencies. We seek to identify such problems and bring together scientists who are passionate about solving them and would enjoy working in a highly supportive, interdisciplinary, and collaborative research environment.
We have identified two areas that are particularly well matched to the JFRC environment: the identification of general principles that govern how information is processed by neuronal circuits, using genetic model systems in conjunction with imaging, electrophysiological, and computational methods; and the development of imaging technologies and computational methods for image analysis.
In addition, we are open to particularly innovative ideas in other important areas of basic biomedical research.
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What is a lab head?
Lab heads are independent scientists or engineers who run research laboratories. Lab heads report to the director (who is also a lab head). The group leaders, the Janelia Farm fellows, the Janelia Farm senior fellows, and the director of the Applied Physics Instrumentation Group are all lab heads. All other staff and facilities at Janelia Farm support the lab heads by facilitating their research activities and freeing them from extraneous duties.
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What is a group leader?
Janelia Farm group leaders are laboratory heads and are intellectually independent. They are imaginative, bold researchers whose primary responsibility is generating new ideas and bringing them to fruition. Group leaders may have up to six lab members, in addition to themselves. We expect to appoint up to 24 group leaders. Group leaders are roughly equivalent to academic professors or HHMI investigators: they direct the research of a group of postdocs, graduate students, and technicians. There are some significant differences, however, in such areas as resources, tenure, and review (see other questions for details).
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What is a Janelia Farm fellow?
Janelia Farm fellows are laboratory heads and are intellectually independent. They are imaginative, bold researchers whose primary responsibility is generating new ideas and bringing them to fruition. Fellows may have up to two lab members, in addition to themselves. We expect to appoint up to 20 Janelia Farm fellows, most of whom will have sought this position as an alternative to a standard postdoctoral experience or assistant professorship. Others may be more senior individuals at career transition points. The fellowship is for a five-year term and is not usually renewable. Fellows may apply for a group leader position at any time.
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What is a Janelia Farm senior fellow?
Janelia Farm senior fellows are distinguished scientists who spend a significant fraction of their time in residence at Janelia Farm. They are expected to contribute to the intellectual environment, provide strategic advice, serve as mentors to other lab heads, collaborate with other scientists, and may also supervise their own research groups. Some senior fellows have small research groups at Janelia.
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Are there postdocs at Janelia Farm?
Laboratory heads with vacant positions may recruit postdoctoral associates in the same way that faculty do in academia. These positions are fully supported by HHMI. If a postdoctoral associate is awarded a significant external fellowship (such as from the Helen Hay Whitney, Life Sciences Research, or Jane Coffin Childs Foundations), we ask the awarding foundation or agency to allow the fellow to retain the title and the nonmonetary benefits of the award while HHMI pays the full stipend. In this way, we can allow the individuals to enjoy the status and privileges of their awards without subjecting Janelia Farm to the administrative complexities of accepting grants.
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Are there graduate students at Janelia Farm?
Yes. Although Janelia Farm does not grant degrees, we are committed to providing an outstanding environment for graduate students to pursue their research. Doctoral students provide a unique perspective and the social glue that binds research groups together. Such students often communicate across unexpected lines and initiate innovative avenues of collaborative research. Janelia Farm provides a research and intellectual environment for graduate students where the small size of individual research groups and the highly interactive and collaborative, interdisciplinary culture provides a strong training and mentoring environment.
We have established partnerships with two degree-granting institutions that permit Janelia Farm lab heads to serve as thesis advisers to these students: the Universities of Chicago and Cambridge. Students are admitted to either Chicago or Cambridge and to a particular research group at Janelia. Students are expected to receive their Ph.D. degrees in 4 to 5 years and generally spend their first year at the university partner, undertaking academic courses and/or beginning collaborative research projects, and then return to Janelia for the remainder of their graduate research.
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What is the visiting scientist program? How does it work?
Janelia Farm can host up to 100 visiting scientists at any one time. These visitors include university faculty on sabbatical, individuals or groups who want to use specific facilities or undertake collaborative experiments for periods ranging from a few days to two years, and scientists who regularly spend a time at Janelia. Visitors are housed on-site to the extent possible, and HHMI will support the costs of their research at Janelia Farm. Most visitors are nominated by Janelia Farm lab heads. We also encourage applications from anyone in academia or industry who wants to spend time at Janelia Farm.
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Do lab heads have external grants?
No. Janelia Farm is fully funded by HHMI. New lab heads who already hold outside funding are required to terminate it before beginning their employment at Janelia Farm. A core goal of Janelia Farm is to free scientists from the need to write grant proposals and to allow them the freedom to change research direction without concern for the impact on their funding. HHMI provides all the resources needed for research carried out at Janelia Farm.
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How can lab heads interact with industry and academia?
Lab heads are encouraged to collaborate with academic, industrial, and government scientists. They pursue their work under the same well-established policies that have long governed the activities of HHMI investigators based at universities and other research institutions. We engage in collaborative projects with industrial partners when appropriate, such as in technology development. We also work with companies to help commercialize technologies developed in our laboratories. Separately from their Janelia Farm research activities, lab heads are permitted to do paid consulting for companies, again under the policies that govern consulting by other HHMI investigators.
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How is group size, space, and budget determined?
Group leaders are limited to a maximum of six additional lab members because we believe that it is difficult to run a group larger than this and also be a good colleague who is directly involved in conducting day-to-day research. Fellows are limited to two additional lab members. With our extensive shared resource support, these moderately sized groups should be as productive as much larger groups in academia. Lab heads are provided with whatever is required for their work, including space, equipment, reagents, and shared resource lab usage, so that their science will be limited only by their creativity and effort.
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What scientific support does Janelia Farm provide the lab heads?
We have built an extensive program of shared resources to support the research groups and visiting scientists at Janelia. This range of resources will be reviewed regularly, taking into account input from the users. At this time we have:
- A Drosophila resource
- A scientific information technology resource that includes software development and database support
- Support for high performance scientific computing
- A molecular biology facility centered on preparing DNA constructs and related services
- An anatomy and histology resource, with an emphasis on sample preparation methods for light and electron microscopy
- An electron microscopy facility
- A light microscopy facility, with a major emphasis on fluorescence-based techniques
- An instrument design and fabrication facility
- A tissue culture facility
- An extensive stockroom
- Media preparation and glass-washing support
- A library
Intellectual support includes the outstanding set of collaborative colleagues and a series of seminars, among them one for invited outside speakers, one for lab heads to present their work and for postdocs and graduate students to speak. In addition, lab heads are able to interact with the visiting scientists in residence, as well as the attendees at the conferences we host each year.
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Who does run the shared resources and administrative operations?
We have technical experts in the relevant fields running for the shared resources. These experts are active in technical development and improvement in their areas of expertise. We also have a full complement of administrative and operational research support personnel.
We have a number of high-level, experienced operational managers and are searching for others. Visit our employment site to review the positions currently available.
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How does publication and authorship work?
At Janelia Farm, we adhere to the established academic ethical standards of publication practice. Lab heads are normally senior authors, and they are free to publish in any journal. However, we encourage collaboration and reward lab heads who contribute to each other's work. While this may produce some papers with a large number of authors, the average number of authors per paper will likely be fewer than in academia.
Collaborative groups are “self-assembling” and not imposed in any way. Our culture is intended to provide lab heads with a higher degree of intellectual freedom than is commonly available at most institutions by allowing them to pursue long-term projects of high significance—projects that would not fit within the confines of a standard grant proposal.
A culture promoting small research groups and broad collaboration may seem contradictory; neither is common in academia. The potential of such a combination may best be illustrated with an example. At its peak, the C. elegans group at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge had more than 30 people, including several group leaders. There was an enormous amount of interaction and a high level of productivity. Postdocs and students often published papers with group leaders other than their own. Yet, most of the papers had a small number of authors.
