The NIH announced yesterday the winner of the new NIH Director’s Innovator Awards, which were launched earlier this year and are for young PIs who have not received a regular NIH (R01) grant. Out of the 29 winners, 10 are from the Boston area and they cover a range of areas, from neuroscience and immunology to cancer and drug discovery. They’ll each receive $1.5 million over five years.

The NIH also announced the winners of the 12 NIH Director’s Pioneer Awards, six of which went to Boston-area scientists. They’ll each get $2.5 million for five years. This is the fourth year those awards have been given out.

Here’s how the NIH press releases described the Boston-based winners:

Innovator Awards

Ed Boyden, Massachusetts Institute of Technology assistant professor of biological engineering, who will invent and study new methods of controlling the neural circuits that malfunction in neurological and psychiatric disorders.

Sarah Fortune, Harvard School of Public Health assistant professor of immunology and infectious diseases, who will investigate the mechanisms by which tuberculosis escapes the immune system response.

Levi A. Garraway, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute assistant professor of medicine, who will use a novel genetic and chemical screening approach to identify changes in malignant melanoma tumor cells that could be targets for new treatments.

Nir Hacohen, Massachusetts General Hospital assistant professor of medicine, who will use a new genetic approach to dissect immune system pathways that sense disease-causing agents.

Ekaterina Heldwein, Tufts University School of Medicine assistant professor of microbiology and molecular biology, who will use structural and biophysical approaches to discover, in atomic-level detail, how herpes viruses enter their host cells.

Konrad Hochedlinger, Harvard Stem Cell Institute assistant professor of medicine, who will study the reprogramming of adult mouse and human cells into embryonic cells by defined factors.

Alan Jasanoff, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology N.C. Rasmussen Assistant Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, who will devise genetically controlled, noninvasive methods for measuring brain activity in animals.

Mark D. Johnson, Brigham and Women’s Hospital assistant professor of neurosurgery, who will examine the role of decreased synthesis of microRNA, a recently discovered class of molecules, in the development and aggressiveness of human cancer.

Alan Saghatelian, Harvard University assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology, who will develop advanced analytical chemistry approaches to characterize biomedically important enzymes.

Mehmet Fatih Yanik, Massachusetts Institute of Technology assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, who will develop microchip technologies to perform extremely fast studies of gene function in small animals to rapidly identify genetic targets for new drugs.

*Pioneer Awards*

_Lisa Feldman Barrett, Boston College professor of psychology, who will study how the brain creates emotional experiences like anger and happiness._

_Emery N. Brown, Massachusetts General Hospital professor of anesthesia and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of computational neuroscience and health sciences and technology, who will develop a systems neuroscience approach to study how anesthetic drugs act in the brain to create the state of general anesthesia._

_James J. Collins, Boston University professor of biomedical engineering, who will develop systems biology and synthetic biology approaches to analyze the bacterial gene regulatory networks underlying cellular responses to antibiotics._

_Takao K. Hensch, Children’s Hospital Boston professor of neurology, who will explore the role of noncoding RNAs in brain development and as a potential treatment for brain disorders._

_Frances E. Jensen, Children’s Hospital Boston professor of neurology, who will examine how seizures in early life alter the developing brain and lead to cognitive disorders._

_Gina Turrigiano, Brandeis University professor of biology, who will develop a very high-resolution microscope for probing the molecular structure of synapses._