A major grant to the Maine Medical Center Research Institute promises improved treatment for a wide range of disease and demonstrates again that Maine has a strong future in high-tech research. The staff at the Scarborough institute deserves credit for this important national achievement.

The grant, from the National Institutes of Health, will provide $11.2 million over five years for stem-cell research. Though the biomedical institute already has 31 researchers and technicians studying stem cells, the grant is expected to triple that number. Stem cells have the seemingly unique capacity to repair the body by generating specialized cells and tissues and offer huge promise for producing insulin-secreting cells for diabetes, nerve cells in stroke or Parkinson’s disease or cells to repair a damaged liver and treatment for other degenerative diseases. Currently, the institute is studying ways to develop non-invasive stem-cell treatment for cancer, kidney disease and multiple sclerosis.

The institute is not alone in conducting major research into stem cells. Jackson Laboratory and Mount Desert Island Biological Lab have both won grants in this field and are conducting research. That matters for the quality of work being done – having numerous colleagues studying the same field helps everyone – and for employment, in which Maine’s college students can aim for a promising career while remaining here.

In a recent news report on the grant, Keith Hutchison, a biochemistry professor at the University of Maine, said the grant “definitely helps build the overall capacity for the state to do biomedical research. … We already have some students placed down there, and this is just going to allow us to do more.”

Doing more with R&D is crucial for Maine, especially as it loses its best-paying manufacturing jobs. The state can thrive again if it can attract a sufficient number of high-tech businesses that in turn attract others. If it can attract top scientists who will need their labs staffed, Maine may soon produce many more top scientists of its own. If its relatively small number of bio-medical labs can continue to win grants, Maine will become known as a place where other bio-medical firms should locate.

Voters have supported investing in these labs through bond questions; outcomes such as the one at Maine Med’s Research Institute show that these investments will provide large returns for everyone.