The Jackson Laboratory (also known as Jax[1]) was founded in Bar Harbor, Maine in 1929 by former University of Maine and University of Michigan president C. C. Little under the name Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Laboratory.[2]
The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution, dedicated to contributing to a future of better health care based on the unique genetic makeup of each individual. A National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center with more than 1,400 employees in Bar Harbor, Maine, and Sacramento, California, the Laboratory's mission is to discover the genetic basis for preventing, treating and curing human diseases, and to enable research and education for the global biomedical community. The Laboratory is also the world's source for more than 4,000 strains of genetically defined mice, is home of the mouse genome database and is an international hub for scientific courses, conferences, training and education.
Major research areas
The lab's research, represented by the activities of some 35-40 laboratories, is largely sponsored by NIH grants and is focused in six major areas:
- Bioinformatics: mouse genome informatics, comparative genomics.
- Cancers: bone, cervical, leukemia, liver, lymphoma, mammary, ovarian.
- Development and Aging-Related: birth defects, Down syndrome, osteoporosis.
- Immune System and Blood Disorders: AIDS, anemia, autoimmunity, immune system disorders, tissue transplant rejection.
- Metabolic Diseases: atherosclerosis, diabetes, gallstones, hypertension, obesity.
- Neurological and Sensory Disorders: blindness, cerebellar disorders, deafness, epilepsy, glaucoma, macular degeneration, neurodegenerative diseases.
Because of the large number of mice housed at Jackson, de-novo, naturally occurring mutants are routinely discovered and a long running program, The Mutant Mouse Resource (http://mousemutant.jax.org/index.html), has mapped and characterized those mutants deemed to have interesting phenotypes. Characterization and mapping of these mutants has resulted in the discovery of many novel genes as well as giving a better understanding of the function of many known genes. For example, two mutants discovered at the Jackson lab have played a critical role in the study of the biology of aging (in fact, these two mice, remain the most-long lived genetically altered mice to date): Pit1 a mutation in a pituitary transcription factor giving rise to the long-lived Snell dwarf mouse and Prop1 a mutation giving rise to the long-lived Ames dwarf mice.
Notable scientists at the Jackson Laboratory
Dr. George Snell was a co-recipient of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for research he conducted at The Jackson Laboratory. Dr. Snell had discovered the major histocompatibility complex genes, a discovery that lead to higher success rates of organ transplants.
The Jackson Laboratory fire
On May 10, 1989, a flash fire destroyed the Morrell Park mouse production facility. The fire raged for five hours, requiring over 100 fire fighters from 15 companies and a total of 16 trucks 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. Additionally, half a million mice were lost, 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.[3]
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