BIOMEDICINE’S PROMISE

With the announcement last week that two research labs and seven colleges would share a $17.8 million federal grant to support biomedical research, Gov. John Baldacci observed, “the state’s investment in biomedical research is paying off.” Yes, but there was already ample evidence that this investment has been paying Maine back since the time the first bond money was invested. This latest funding from the National Institutes of Health is especially important, however, because it adds to the capacity of the state to contribute much more to this growing field.

The five-year grant to the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory will help support research there in genomics and further work at The Jackson Laboratory concerning the influences on gene expression in early development, new imaging and computer equipment at Bates College, pre-doctoral summer research fellowships at Bowdoin College, equipment and staff at Colby College’s biomedical research program, expanded or new biomedical teaching and research at College of the Atlantic, the University of Maine, UMaine-Farmington and UMaine-Machias.

By collaborating and sharing resources, these institutions can make this money do what R&D money has been doing here (and, on a larger scale, elsewhere) for years: act as a multiplier to significantly expand the value of the investment, give Maine a chance to perform potentially life-saving research and provide careers for its best college graduates.

It is worth noting and nothing to be ashamed of that NIH gives these grants to states that have success rates of less than 20 percent in competing for its grants or have averaged less than $70 million annually in those grants. Maine is still new to serious funding of R&D; the new programs this money and other sources with create are its chance to catch up to other states that think not in millions or tens of millions of research dollars invested annually, but hundreds of millions.

There are many reasons to believe Maine will catch up, relative to its size. Five of those reasons made up the Maine Biomedical Research Coalition during the last R&D bond request: MDIBL, The Jackson Lab, University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine, Maine Medical Center Research Institute and the Foundation for Blood Research.

Its colleges and universities are crucial in training students for biomedical careers and for doing an increasing amount of research in biomedicine. And the public, which wisely has supported bond money for R&D even as the demand for lower taxes grew louder, had demonstrated that it understands the potential of this type of research for Maine.

By now, everyone who follows R&D funding in Maine has seen the results: $5 or $6 in matching money for every $1 raised here, local businesses supported, jobs created for local graduates and professionals attracted to Maine. This latest grant is in some ways even better because it broadly expands the foundation on which R&D can be built. It confirms both that Maine’s base is strong even as it has a lot of hard work ahead.