Jackson Lab to expand, add 200 jobs

BAR HARBOR – The largest employer in Hancock County plans to get a lot bigger.

Jackson Laboratory expects to add as many as 200 new research jobs and about 800,000 square feet of facilities to its Bar Harbor complex within four years. Trustees unanimously approved the ambitious plans Saturday.

“The expansion is absolutely essential if our research is to prosper,” said Don Stern, a New York lawyer who was elected chairman of the board at the annual meeting Saturday to succeed David Shaw, whose five-year term had expired.

The laboratory also announced it had won its largest grant ever, $35 million over five years, from the National Institutes of Health. The money will support Jackson Laboratory’s Bioinformatics project, which is a sophisticated process for collecting, managing and analyzing genomic research data. The database is accessed daily by scientists around the world.

The new jobs in Bar Harbor will come as many other Maine businesses have tightened their belts. Jackson Laboratory, a nonprofit entity, has been on the leading edge of the wave of new discoveries in genetics. It is the largest center in the world for creating new mice strains used by scientists in research.

“What this means economically for the community is substantial,” said Dr. Kenneth Paigen, Jackson Laboratory’s director.

Two hundred new scientific investigators would be about a 20 percent increase in staff for an organization that already employs 1,050 people. Most of the new investigators would focus on neurobiology and cancer. Jackson Laboratory is designated a National Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute.

Paigen declined to say how much the project is estimated to cost. Based on current building costs, the price tag for the building is likely to be in excess of $70 million. Jackson Laboratory officials said it would be funded through grants and fund-raising activities.

Jackson Laboratory was founded in 1929, but its most impressive growth came in the last 10 years as scientists came to understand the role of genetics in diseases and biological functions of the body.

From 1991 to 2001 Jackson Laboratory’s:

. Budget tripled from $32.4 million to $97.8 million.

. Employees nearly doubled from 550 to 1,052.

. Lab space quadrupled from 90,250 square feet to 361,000 square feet.

. Published papers went from 155 to 207.

. Grants jumped from $12.9 million to $47.6 million.

The growth shows no sign of slowing.

“The mouse has always been an important organism for genetics, but I think its importance will be greater in coming years,” said Dr. Stuart Orkin, chairman of an outside board of scientific overseers that provides an impartial opinion of Jackson Laboratory’s work.

He said that in recent years the mouse has been found to be even more similar genetically to humans than previously had been thought.

At an amazing time in scientific discovery, those at the annual meeting also were aware of the recent decision by President Bush to limit federally funded stem cell research to work on existing stem cell colonies from embryos already discarded in fertility clinics. U.S. scientists already are using these colonies in disease studies.

The keynote speaker, Dr. Robert L. Nussbaum, chief of the Genetic Disease Research Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., credited with finding the first gene responsible for some cases of Parkinson’s disease, was asked for his opinion of Bush’s decision.

Nussbaum, noting he technically works for Bush, said he could only speak for himself, not for any government agency. He said he thought Bush was trying to come to a compromise between competing opinions about the use of stem cells.

But he said he didn’t like what the decision would lead to. Scientists in other countries would be doing research on discarded embryonic material. Ultimately, the work on these stem cells would find their way into science here.

In essence he’s saying, “It’s OK to work with them if someone else creates them,” Nussbaum said.

“It becomes a dramatic gesture,” he said.

“I think it was a heartfelt attempt [at a compromise by Bush]. I think it was a failure,” he said. Most of the more than 100 attendees of the annual meeting broke into applause after the comment.