The Jackson Laboratory (often abbreviated as JAX) is an independent, non-profit

biomedical research Medical research (or biomedical research), also known as health research, refers to the process of using scientific methods with the aim to produce knowledge about human diseases, the prevention and treatment of illness, and the promotion of ...

institution which was founded by Clarence Cook Little in 1929. It employs over 3,000 employees in

Bar Harbor, Maine Bar Harbor () is a resort town on Mount Desert Island in Hancock County, Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population is 5,089. The town is home to the College of the Atlantic, Jackson Laboratory, and MDI Biological Laborat ...

;

Sacramento, California Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat, seat of Sacramento County, California, Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento Rive ...

;

Farmington, Connecticut Farmington is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, Hartford County in the Farmington Valley area of central Connecticut in the United States. The town is part of the Capitol Planning Region, Connecticut, Capitol Planning Region. The populati ...

;

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

; and

Yokohama is the List of cities in Japan, second-largest city in Japan by population as well as by area, and the country's most populous Municipalities of Japan, municipality. It is the capital and most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a popu ...

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. The institution is a

National Cancer Institute The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...

-designated Cancer Center and has

NIH The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

Centers of Excellence in aging and

system A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its open system (systems theory), environment, is described by its boundaries, str ...

s genetics. The stated mission of The Jackson Laboratory is "to discover the genetic basis for preventing, treating and curing human diseases, and to enable research and

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

for the

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biomedical

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

." The laboratory also provides more than 13,000 strains of mouse models to more than 2,400

organization An organization or organisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences) is an legal entity, entity—such as ...

s in 68 countries around the world. Additionally, JAX is the home of the

Mouse Genome Informatics Mouse Genome Informatics (MGI) is a free, online database and bioinformatics resource hosted by The Jackson Laboratory, with funding by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the Eunice Kenned ...

database, and an international hub for scientific courses, conferences, training and

Major research areas

The Jackson Laboratory has two research campuses, the ''Jackson Laboratory for Mammalian Genetics'' located in Bar Harbor, Maine, and the ''Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine'' located in Farmington, Connecticut. Each campus maintains affiliations with a variety of other academic institutions. In the Bar Harbor location, cooperative Ph.D. training is offered in conjunction with the

University of Maine The University of Maine (UMaine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Orono, Maine, United States. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the Flagship universitie ...

and

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...

. At the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, cooperative Ph.D. training is offered in conjunction with the

University of Connecticut Health Center UConn Health is a healthcare system and hospital, and branch of the University of Connecticut that oversees clinical care, advanced biomedical research, and academic education in medicine. The system is funded directly by the State of Connecticut ...

. There are more than 60 faculty members maintaining independent labs across these campuses, who perform research in six primary areas: * Cancer: The Jackson Laboratory Cancer Center (JAXCC) has a National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center. Cancer areas of focus include: brain, leukemia, lung, lymphoma, prostate, breast; cancer initiation and progression; cancer prevention and therapies * Development/reproductive biology: birth defects, Down syndrome, osteoporosis, fertility * Immunology: HIV/AIDS, anemia, autoimmunity, cancer immunology, immune system disorders, lupus, tissue transplant rejection, vaccines * Metabolic diseases: atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity * Neurobiology: blindness, Alzheimer's, deafness, epilepsy, glaucoma, macular degeneration, neurodegenerative diseases * Neurobehavioral disorders: autism, addiction, depression

History

The Jackson Laboratory was founded by Clarence Cook Little, a former

and

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

president, in 1929 in

under the name Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Laboratory with the purpose of discovering the causes of cancer and other diseases through research on mammals. The campus was built on of land donated by

George Dorr George Bucknam Dorr (December 29, 1853 – August 5, 1944) was an American preservationist. Known as the "father of Acadia National Park,"

. Initial funding for the laboratory campus came from

Edsel Ford Edsel Bryant Ford (November 6, 1893 – May 26, 1943) was an American business executive and philanthropist, who was the only child of pioneering industrialist Henry Ford and his wife, Clara Jane Bryant Ford. He was the president of Ford Motor C ...

, the son of

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American Technological and industrial history of the United States, industrialist and business magnate. As the founder of the Ford Motor Company, he is credited as a pioneer in making automob ...

, and from Roscoe B. Jackson, a one-time head of the

Hudson Motor Car Company The Hudson Motor Car Company made Hudson and other branded automobiles in Detroit, Michigan, U.S., from 1909 until 1954. In 1954, Hudson merged with Nash-Kelvinator to form American Motors Corporation (AMC). The Hudson name was continued through ...

, for whom the institution is named. As well as providing funds for the first laboratory building, Roscoe B. Jackson provided support for the first five years of operation. The sale of mouse animal models began in 1933 with early sales to the

United States Public Health Service The United States Public Health Service (USPHS or PHS) is a collection of agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services which manages public health, containing nine out of the department's twelve operating divisions. The assistant s ...

and The Jackson Laboratory now provides a high proportion of the mice used in biomedical research In particular, the C57BL/6J strain, which is widely used and cited is maintained at The Jackson Laboratory. The demand for mice generated at The Jackson Lab increased in 1937 when the

Surgeon General Surgeon general (: surgeons general) is a title used in several Commonwealth countries and most NATO nations to refer either to a senior military medical officer or to a senior uniformed physician commissioned by the government and entrusted with p ...

supported a grant from

to the lab that made mice produced there a de facto industry standard due to federal standardization requirements because it was the only large-scale mouse provider before World War II. The research performed at The Jackson Laboratory is associated with at least 26 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine via research, resources, or educational programming. Some notable findings from the institution include: * Established that cancer is a genetic disorder, a novel concept before the Laboratory's founding in 1929. * Dr. Leroy Stevens first described cells that can develop into different tissues – today known as stem cells. * Dr. Elizabeth Russell performed the first bone marrow transplants in a mammal, leading to new treatments for blood and immunological diseases. * Dr. George Snell won the Nobel Prize in 1980 for providing an in-depth understanding of the immune system's major

histocompatibility Histocompatibility, or tissue compatibility, is the property of having the same, or sufficiently similar, alleles of a set of genes called human leukocyte antigens (HLA), or major histocompatibility complex (MHC). Each individual expresses many uni ...

complex, making organ transplants possible. * Dr. Douglas L. Coleman discovered the hormone

leptin Leptin (from Ancient Greek, Greek λεπτός ''leptos'', "thin" or "light" or "small"), also known as obese protein, is a protein hormone predominantly made by adipocytes (cells of adipose tissue). Its primary role is likely to regulate long ...

, central to obesity and diabetes research, earning him the Shaw Prize, the Albert Lasker Award, the Gairdner International Award, Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biomedicine, and the King Faisal International Prize in Medicine. * Use of cancer avatars – mice with implanted human tumors – to test targeted therapies for cancer patients. * Recent research has provided insight into cancer stem cells and treatments for leukemia; progress with type 1 diabetes and lupus; and a breakthrough in extending mammalian life span.

Highlights

*A grant from the

National Institute of General Medical Sciences The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) is one of the National Institutes of Health, National Institutes of Health (NIH), the principal medical research agency of the United States Federal government of the United States, Fe ...

funds the development of new computational tools to understand how multiple genes interact in complex diseases. *The

National Institute on Aging The National Institute on Aging (NIA) is a division of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), located in Bethesda, Maryland. The NIA itself is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. The NIA leads a broad scientific effort to understand ...

provides $25 million to develop new treatments, future therapies based on precision modeling. *The

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

(NIH) funds phase 2 of the Knockout Mouse Production and Phenotyping Project (KOMP2). *Researchers link mutations to butterfly-shaped pigment dystrophy, an inherited macular disease. *Jackson Laboratory researchers discover mutation involved in neurodegeneration. *The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine opens in Farmington, Connecticut in October 2014. *In October 2020, it received a $11.8M USD grant from Harold Alfond Foundation.

The Jackson Laboratory Cancer Center

The Jackson Laboratory Cancer Center (JAXCC) first received its National Cancer Institute designation in 1983 in recognition of the foundational cancer research conducted there. The JAXCC is one of seven NCI-designated Cancer Centers with a focus on basic research. The Jackson Laboratory Cancer Center has a single program, Genetic Models for Precision Cancer Medicine, composed of three biological themes: cancer cell robustness, genomic and genetic complexity, and progenitor cell biology. The themes emphasize the systems genetics of cancer and translational cancer genomics, and all are supported by the JAX Cancer Center's technological initiatives in mouse modeling, genome analytics and quantitative cell biology.

The Morrell Park fire

On May 10, 1989, a flash fire destroyed the Morrell Park mouse production facility. The fire lasted for five hours, requiring over 100 firefighters from 15 companies and a total of 16 trucks for the fire to be contained. Four workers of the Colwell Construction Company who were installing fiberglass wallboard in the room where the fire broke out were injured, one with burns over 15 percent of his body. While none of the foundation strains were lost, 300,000 production mice (about 50% of their stock) died, resulting in a national shortage of laboratory mice and the layoff of 60 employees. This was the second fire to severely affect the laboratory; the 1947 fire that burned most of the island destroyed most of the laboratory, and its mice. Worldwide donations of funds and mice allowed the lab to resume operations in 1948.

Acquisitions

In October 2021, Jackson Lab bought Japan-based research animal business from Charles River Laboratories International for US$63 million.

Research resources

* Hosts the

database

Business model

The Jackson Laboratory is recognized by the

IRS The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...

as a public charity. According to organization literature, revenue comes primarily from the sale of materials and services (~70%) and from government support (~25%). Less than 5% of 2012 revenue came from charitable donations.

Notable researchers

* Edison Liu *

Nadia Rosenthal Nadia A. Rosenthal FMedSci is a scientist who specializes in heart development related research. Rosenthal began her undergraduate degree at the University of Wales and then transferred to Harvard. She received her PhD from Harvard Medical School ...

* Charles Lee *

Muriel Davisson Muriel Davisson is an American geneticist who developed the Down syndrome mouse model Ts65Dn. In 1959 she graduated from Pemetic High School in Southwest Harbor, Maine. She holds Ph.D. from Penn State University (1969). She was director of Geneti ...

* George Weinstock * Leroy Stevens * Elizabeth Russell * George Snell

Controversy

In 2013, a jury in Maine found that Jackson Laboratory did not violate that state's

whistleblower Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...

protection law when they fired an employee who claimed to have been terminated after reporting her concerns about the treatment of animals to the

Office for Laboratory Animal Welfare. The worker accused the laboratory of "allowing mice to suffer and then die in their cages instead of euthanizing them" and of cutting off the toes of mice to identify them. Jackson Laboratory denied the allegations and stated the worker was fired for her confrontational demeanor. In 2009, Jackson Laboratory was fined $161,680 by the EPA for improperly handling and storing hazardous materials.

References

{{authority control Mount Desert Island Buildings and structures in Bar Harbor, Maine Medical research institutes in the United States Cancer organizations based in the United States Companies based in Hancock County, Maine Scientific organizations established in 1929 Medical and health organizations based in Maine Research institutes in Maine Research institutes in California Research institutes in Connecticut