Starting life as a no-frills newsletter, the HHMI Bulletin was four pages long and sported only two colors: black and green. The tagline, “Published for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Community,” aptly reflects the original content – stories that appealed to the Institute’s employees, such as the December 1988 headline announcing HHMI had won approval from county officials to build its headquarters in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
During the next several years, the Bulletin maintained its bare-bones look, but added color photography and began featuring research pioneered by HHMI scientists. The November 1990 cover story told of Michael Welsh and James Wilson’s use of gene replacement “to correct the cystic fibrosis defect in colonies of human cells grown in the laboratory.” Welsh, still an HHMI investigator, continues to study cystic fibrosis and is featured in “Steady On” in the Fall 2015 Bulletin.
By August 1993, the Bulletin had dropped its tagline, changed its masthead, and added a prominent table of contents to help readers navigate its 16 pages. The new Chevy Chase headquarters and conference center that had made headlines in 1988 were finally a reality, and a combined dedication and 40th anniversary celebration was the cover story for this issue.
Over the next few years, the Bulletin evolved even more, changing its masthead again and favoring a single large image on its covers, such as this June 1997 bar graph representing expansion of the investigator program. The figure illustrated a story on the 70 scientists who were then joining the HHMI investigator roster, bringing the total to about 330 – a number that has remained relatively constant since. The Fall 2015 Bulletin also features a story, “Problem Solvers,” on the latest cohort of investigators.
By August 1998, the Bulletin was looking more like a magazine and less like a newsletter. The majority of the publication’s 24 pages were dedicated to stories about HHMI-supported scientific research, including this issue’s cover story about Wayne Hendrickson’s determination of the structure of an HIV coat protein called gp120. Hendrickson was one of the first scientists to receive funding from the Institute’s structural biology program, created in 1986.
The July 2001 issue weighed in at a whopping 40 pages and was also published in part as an “e-zine.” This online version of the magazine, which debuted with the January 2001 issue, adapted a handful of print stories for the Web, broadening their scope with additions such as sidebars and multimedia. The July issue also marked the official announcement of HHMI’s plans to build the Janelia Farm Research Campus – a research facility in Virginia that some people were calling “the Bell Labs of biology.”
By February 2006, the Bulletin had undergone a major redesign that emphasized the use of conceptual illustration and striking photography to complement the articles. This cover illustration by Jason Holley was so popular that the magazine’s editors received numerous requests for the pattern from readers who wanted to use it in the décor of their homes. At 56 pages, this issue also represents the magazine’s high-water mark in terms of size.
Although it’s been eight years since this issue of the Bulletin was published, the cover story about the importance of involving undergraduates in hands-on scientific research – in this case, bioprospecting in the Amazon – still rings true today. The Fall 2015 issue’s story, “Powered by Students,” highlights two HHMI-funded programs – SEA-PHAGES and the Genomics Education Partnership – that also give undergrads a taste of research.
This striking illustration by Riccardo Vecchio marks one of the rare occasions that a portrait has been featured on the Bulletin’s cover. The drawing is of Roger Tsien, an HHMI investigator who won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a rainbow of fluorescent markers to watch cellular proteins in action.
The cover of the May 2010 issue is also an artistic anomaly. Of the 36 issues of the Bulletin published between February 2006 and October 2015, only this one has featured a photo illustration. The cover story is about optogenetics, which makes use of light to control nerve cells – a technique that in 2010 was named “Method of the Year” by Nature Methods and highlighted as one of the 10 “Insights of the Decade” in Science.
The August 2010 cover story also featured a hot topic. Following on the heels of the 2008 launch of the National Institutes of Health’s Human Microbiome Project, the Bulletin reported on several HHMI investigators’ research into how the billions of bacteria in our guts have an impact on our health.
Over the years, the Bulletin has offered stories about the culture of science as well. The cover story for the February 2011 issue, for example, looked at how principal investigators find and train the most promising postdocs. The May 2011 issue then followed up with a story on the experience from the postdocs' perspective. The February 2011 Bulletin also marked the launch of an iPad edition, making the Bulletin one of the first science magazines offered through the iTunes store.
The Fall 2012 Bulletin threw the spotlight on lesser-known but nevertheless essential lab personnel – staff scientists. The comic book-inspired cover story featured five of these behind-the-scenes heroes, with 17 more showcased in the online edition.
Education and diversity have always been important to HHMI, and the Spring 2013 cover story exemplified this with an article on the10th anniversary of the Exceptional Research Opportunities Program (EXROP). Created to provide talented underrepresented minority undergrads the opportunity to do mentored summer research, the HHMI program recognizes that diversity in perspective and background is essential for moving science forward.
In 2014, HHMI unveiled a new logo. That year the magazine also underwent a slight makeover, adopting new fonts, uncoated paper stock, and a smaller trim size. The cover story for the Fall Bulletin, which was the first to showcase the new logo, focused on cell division – emblematic of the Institute’s emphasis on basic research.
After 27 years and 95 issues, the HHMI Bulletin is finally ending its run. But that doesn’t mean the storytelling will end: look for continuing coverage of HHMI’s work and people online and through social media in the days, weeks, and years ahead. Science is ever advancing, and we’ll do our best to keep you informed and enlightened.
A look at the Bulletin, then, and now.
