Scarborough genetics lab eyed as model for Brewer institute

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SCARBOROUGH – Proteomics, biomarkers and neurogenetics may not ever be the stuff of breakfast table conversation in eastern Maine, but boosters of a new scientific institute based in Brewer say the region can expect a gradual awakening of its biomedical research vocabulary.

That’s what has happened in Greater Portland, where the Maine Medical Center Research Institute, or MMCRI, has become an important part of the regional economy and a cornerstone of biomedical research in New England.

Bangor-area residents curious about the evolution of the Maine Institute for Human Genetics and Health – an affiliate of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems in partnership with The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor and the University of Maine in Orono – can expect the Brewer lab to take a cue from its successful southern Maine counterpart.

Success in Scarborough

Administratively, MMCRI is a department of Maine Medical Center in Portland, the state’s largest hospital. Although its presence and impact in the Portland area has grown rapidly over the past decade, director Kenneth Ault said in a recent interview that the research program has evolved gradually over more than a half-century. Physicians at MMC have engaged in research since the 1950s, he said, using human patients as well as mice and other methods to test the effectiveness of innovations in cardiovascular care and the treatment of kidney dysfunction.

In the late 1950s a formal research institution was proposed. But the political and financial climate wasn’t right, and “the whole thing just kind of fizzled,” Ault said. About 20 years ago the idea was raised again and this time MMC board members and others in the community got solidly behind the project and made a long-term commitment to fund it.

Though it was another 10 years before the freestanding lab was constructed in Scarborough, recruiting began early on for researchers with the experience and clout to attract significant research funding from the National Institutes of Health and other sources.

Initially, scientists were provided with make-do lab space at the hospital. But as their numbers grew, their work built up momentum and their funding became established, plans for the new lab facility began to develop.

In 1997, the freestanding MMCRI facility opened for business, boasting top-of-the-line equipment and state-of-the-art laboratories. The $13 million project was paid for with a combination of hospital reserves and an intensive fundraising effort.

On the hospital’s grassy Scarborough campus, just a couple minutes’ drive off Interstate 295, the two-story brick research facility now houses 16 full-time senior scientists, each with at least a half-dozen research assistants and other staff. In the climate-controlled basement, thousands of specially bred mice are raised for use in experiments.

Including scientists and their assistants, administrative staff, mouse handlers, maintenance workers and other employees, the lab employs about 150 people, with an average annual salary of about $57,000. Even the lower-level positions require some specialized training, which is provided by the facility.

Science and the community

MMCRI scientists are engaged in a number of research areas. Two broad categories of investigation are angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels, and stem cell biology, which seeks to understand the mechanisms and therapeutic uses of these “blank-slate” structures.

More specifically, researchers there have been successful at directing mouse stem cells to grow into cardiac blood vessels which could someday be used in treating human heart disease. Other scientists are studying a recently identified protein that regulates the growth of stem cells. Another protein element is being studied for its ability to treat iron deficiency in renal disease and after chemotherapy. Some research is directed at regulating blood vessel inflammation, thought to be the basis for many human diseases.

Together the researchers at MMCRI pull down about $15 million in research funding each year from NIH and other organizations. Their annual salaries range from $150,000 to $170,000.

In addition to the full-time scientists employed by the lab, MMCRI provides space and support to practicing physicians in southern Maine who want to conduct their own research. It also hosts undergraduate and graduate college students who want to experience a professional research setting, and offers a summer program for high school students.

Researchers collaborate with colleagues at The Jackson Lab as well as with faculty and students at the University of Maine, the University of Vermont, Dartmouth Medical School and the University of New England School of Osteopathic Medicine in Biddeford.

In addition to the lab itself, MMCRI has attracted a number of “spinoff” businesses to southern Maine – companies and organizations that support the work of the lab or build on the information it generates.

First things first

MMCRI may have set an enviable standard for biomedical research in the state, but supporters of a similar project in eastern Maine caution that it will take time to develop the same level of activity and visibility here.

Janet Hock is the director and the principal investigator at the fledgling Maine Institute for Human Genetics and Health. Though the institute’s mailing address is at the corporate headquarters of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems in Brewer, for now Hock is working out of make-do quarters at The Jackson Lab.

In a recent interview, she said she’s “a happy camper,” despite scaled-back plans to build the state-of-the-art research facility in Brewer.

With Mainers suffering from higher-than-average levels of cancer and chronic disorders such as heart disease and diabetes – and with research dollars available for studies that bring promising laboratory results to the bedsides of human patients – Hock said the time is right for eastern Maine to grow its own research program.

Hock’s immediate priority is to continue recruiting top-shelf scientists. Once there’s enough buzz – a stable group of researchers running multiple studies with reliable funding from prominent sources – the new bricks-and-mortar laboratory will take shape, she said.

Challenges for Brewer

While the Brewer project has the support of Maine’s research community, Ault said, it faces significant obstacles.

For one thing, “they’re starting more from scratch” than MMCRI did, he said. Although Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor has supported physician research for many years, the program there has been low-profile and lacks the momentum that was present when MMCRI got serious about a stand-alone presence, he said.

The project is also hindered by its distance from Boston, Ault said. Finding researchers willing to forgo the career benefits of a major academic center in favor of the more isolated environs of eastern Maine will likely be an even greater challenge than it has been for MMCRI, which is just two hours by car from Boston and is served daily by reliable bus, plane and train service.

Finally, Ault said, at MMCRI “the research mission is part of the hospital mission. That’s certainly true here – and I trust it is there [at the Maine Institute for Human Genetics and Health], as well.”

“You have to have a certain critical mass of funding – a basis of financial support to survive [research funding] cycles,” Ault said. “We had that 20 years ago, and now we’re doing very well.”

MMCRI broke ground recently on a spacious new addition and is looking to bring in seven or eight more principal researchers with their own staffs. (One already on board is bone specialist Dr. Clifford Rosen, formerly of Bangor.) The new addition will be half the size as the original building but is expected to cost about the same amount. It will include a clinical area, where patients enrolled in medical trials can receive their treatments and be examined.

In Brewer, plans for the new laboratory facility are taking shape, but more modestly than initially envisioned. Citing financial and logistical slowdowns, EMHS has committed to a scaled-back version that will give scientists some access to patients but keep the majority of research housed at Jackson Lab, the University of Maine and elsewhere.

Construction will begin next spring on a new cancer care center next to the EMHS headquarters in Brewer. That building also will include offices, meeting rooms and other first-phase components of the Maine Institute for Human Genetics and Health.

Online: ww.mainegenetics.org and www.mmcri.org/.