The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine
Discovering precise genomic solutions for disease and growing Connecticut’s bioscience economy
Find out what's happening in Farmingtonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Project Update, November 2013
Construction progress and awards
Find out what's happening in Farmingtonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Construction of the 183,500-square-foot JAX Genomic Medicine facility began in November 2012 and continues on schedule. Workers are focusing on getting the structure closed in and weather tight before the onset of winter. The curving wall of glass that makes up the west façade of the structure is finished, and masons have installed the public-facing limestone of the east wall.
With the onset of winter, nearly 300 workers will be on the site each day to complete interior framing and utility infrastructure. The LEED-certified building will be ready for occupancy in October 2014 with grand opening events planned for October 7.
The Jackson Laboratory has awarded bid packages totaling $108 million for the construction of the new facility. Of that figure, 87 percent — more than $94 million—has been awarded to companies headquartered or with regional offices in Connecticut.
The following firms are leading the project:
· Gilbane Inc., a New England construction firm with a district office in Glastonbury, Conn., is the program manager.
· The team of Centerbrook Architects of Centerbrook, Conn., Tsoi/Kobus & Associates of Cambridge, Mass., BVH Integrated Services of Bloomfield, Conn., and BR+A of Watertown, Mass., is providing the architectural and engineering design for the facility.
· The Whiting-Turner Contracting Co., with a regional office in New Haven, Conn., is overseeing site preparation, utilities development, and overall building and site construction efforts.
The Laboratory has awarded nearly $30 million in contracts to small businesses and minority-owned companies.
George Weinstock joins JAX faculty
George M. Weinstock, Ph.D., a pioneer in the sequencing and analysis of human, model organism and microbial genomes, has joined the faculty of The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, where he will be the associate director for Microbial Genomics.
Weinstock comes to The Jackson Laboratory from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., where he has been associate director of the university’s Genome Institute as well as professor of genetics and professor of molecular microbiology since 2008. Before that he was co-director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and a professor in the Department of Human and Molecular Genetics there.
Weinstock is a leader of the Human Microbiome Project, an international effort to apply and develop the latest technological tools to comprehensively characterize the human microbiome, the large and genetically varied population of microorganisms that inhabit the human body and that may be a significant factor in health and disease.
“George Weinstock is a giant in the field of human metagenomics,” says Jackson Laboratory Vice President for Research Robert Braun, Ph.D. “His contributions have and will continue to transform our view of human biology.”
Weinstock’s many awards and honors include being named fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Human Genome Program senior fellow, and fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. He serves on a number of advisory panels in academia, industry, and government, and this year is a visiting expert at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and visiting distinguished adjunct professor at King Abdulaziz University.
Type 2 diabetes expert joins JAX Genomic Medicine faculty
Michael L. Stitzel, Ph.D., an expert in the heritable causes of type 2 diabetes and related islet cell dysfunction in the pancreas, will join the JAX Genomic Medicine faculty as an assistant professor. He comes to the new institute from a postdoctoral appointment at the National Human Genome Research Institute, in the laboratory of Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Institutes of Health.
JAX Genomic Medicine obtains key state and federal approvals
At the beginning of October, The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine achieved two important designations. Licensing by the Connecticut State Department of Health and registration under CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments), which is granted through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, demonstrate that the Laboratory meets rigorous standards to ensure quality laboratory results for the clinical testing of human cells and tissues.
Recruiting from Connecticut and around the world
At the end of October, JAX Genomic Medicine had a payroll of almost 80 full-time employees, with additional contracts signed and more applications under review. Of these hires, almost 50 are lead investigators and Ph.D. research staff. About two dozen positions, both scientific and administrative, have been filled by residents of Connecticut. The average annual compensation is about 45 percent higher than the $77,220 average annual compensation in Connecticut. In 10 years, the Laboratory will employ at least 300 people, including 90 scientists, investigators and postdoctoral students; 90 bioinformatics specialists and technicians; and 120 administrative and operational employees.
The Jackson Laboratory recruits from a global network of top-level researchers. The following principal investigators are among the scientific staff in place at JAX Genomic Medicine:
· Jacques Banchereau, Ph.D., is professor and director of Immunological Sciences at The Jackson Laboratory. He most recently was chief scientific officer, senior vice president and head of the inflammation and virology discovery and translational areas at Roche Holding AG.
· Reinhard Laubenbacher, Ph.D., a mathematician and systems biologist, holds the first joint academic appointment with the UConn Health Center and JAX Genomic Medicine. Laubenbacher previously served as professor and director of education and outreach at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, part of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
· Charles Lee, Ph.D., is the scientific director for JAX Genomic Medicine. Lee formerly directed both the molecular genetics research unit at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the cytogenetics facility for the Harvard Cancer Center in Boston.
· Frank McKeon, Ph.D., is professor and director of quantitative cell biology. McKeon is building a technology platform to identify the stem cells that support lung regeneration following influenza, the cell-of-origin in lethal gastrointestinal cancers and the regional specificity of stem cells in human organs.
· Yijun Ruan, Ph.D., formerly of the Genome Institute of Singapore, is director of genomic sciences. Ruan is a geneticist who has pioneered new techniques to sequence and map DNA to better understand cancer growth and stem cell properties.
In addition, Edison Liu, M.D., president and CEO of The Jackson Laboratory, maintains his own laboratory and research staff at the Farmington facility. Liu’s research focuses on the functional genomics of human cancers, particularly breast cancer.
JAX Genomic Medicine hosts clinical genomics workshop
JAX Genomic Medicine hosted a landmark genomics conference at the beginning of October that drew an overflow crowd of researchers and thought leaders to Farmington. The event signaled the Laboratory’s ongoing commitment to outreach, education and leadership in the emerging field of clinical genomics.
The event, titled Clinical Genomics in the 21st Century, featured JAX President and CEO Edison Liu, M.D., who welcomed more than 150 conference participants and led a discussion that followed the final talk. In addition to presenters from The Jackson Laboratory, speakers represented the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baylor University, Yale University, Harvard University, Washington University in St. Louis, the New York Genome Center, the UConn Health Center and other organizations.
Presenters discussed recent research findings and also explored challenges such as the ethical handling of incidental findings, maintaining data security, resolving reimbursement obstacles and overcoming resistance to clinical change within the medical community.
The conference was held at the UConn Health Center’s Cell and Genome Sciences Building, where JAX Genomic Medicine is temporarily leasing space. The scientific community can expect to see many more high-caliber events as JAX Genomic Medicine becomes established in Farmington.
What is Genomics?
Whereas the study of genetics has traditionally focused on single genes, the emerging field of genomics investigates the workings of all genetic material within each cell, collectively called the genome. Genome research seeks to explore gene network function as well as health and disease states related to genome sequence and structure.
JAX partnerships flourish in Connecticut
Researchers at The Jackson Laboratory are forming partnerships and collaborations with scientific and clinical colleagues in Connecticut.
· A recently announced $3.2 million National Institutes of Health grant will fund a five-year study that brings together JAX bone geneticist Cheryl Ackert-Bicknell, Ph.D., with David Rowe, M.D., professor of reconstructive sciences at the UConn Health Center School of Dentistry, and Dong-Guk Shin, Ph.D., professor of computer science at UConn’s bioinformatics division. The team will provide a detailed analysis of the role of individual genes in maintaining bone density and strength. Their project complements the ongoing international study known as the Knockout Mouse Project, which aims to determine the function of each gene in the mouse genome.
· The Institute for Systems Genomics at the University of Connecticut in Storrs has announced four funding awards for research projects featuring JAX partnerships. The Institute, formed about a year ago, is supported by academic disciplines at UConn including medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, education, engineering, agriculture, and liberal arts and sciences as well as by The Jackson Laboratory’s commitment to advancing genomic research and medicine in Connecticut.
· Scientists from The Jackson Laboratory are partnering with cancer specialists at Hartford Hospital and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center to improve clinical care and health outcomes for adults and children with cancer. The collaboration provides a clinical framework for the JAX Cancer Avatar Program, which uses specialized research mice as stand-ins, or avatars, for human cancer patients.
Other JAX studies under development with collaborators in Connecticut will explore the potential for using stem cells to regenerate damaged lung tissue, new ways to detect precancerous ovarian lesions, and the use of genome studies to improve the efficiency and success of in vitro fertilization procedures.
The Jackson Laboratory
The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, 501(c)3, nonprofit biomedical research institution and National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center with more than 1,500 employees. Headquartered in Bar Harbor, Maine, it has a facility in Sacramento, Calif., and a new institute for genomic medicine in Farmington, Conn.
The Laboratory’s mission is to discover precise genomic solutions to disease and empower the global biomedical community in the shared quest to improve human health. The Laboratory’s work will make medicine more precise, predictable and personal, improving both life span and health span.
Founded in 1929, the Laboratory applies its eight decades of expertise in genetics to increase understanding of human disease, advancing treatments and cures for cancer, neurological and immune disorders, diabetes, aging and heart disease. It models and interprets genomic complexity, integrates basic research with clinical application, educates current and future scientists, and empowers the global biomedical community by providing critical data, tools and services.
What is JAX Genomic Medicine?
The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, established in 2012, is a nonprofit research center that identifies the precise genetic causes of diseases and spurs the development of individualized plans of treatment and prevention. Better disease management made possible by genomic research has the potential not only to improve the health of individual patients but also to reduce health care spending and ease the public health burden of major diseases.
Scientists at JAX Genomic Medicine are building collaborations among doctors, researchers and the biomedical industry to bring genomic findings into the clinical setting. In partnership with colleagues at the University of Connecticut, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and other research organizations, JAX Genomic Medicine researchers already have applied for over $25.5 million in research funding from both public and private sources.
Throughout its history, The Jackson Laboratory, based in Bar Harbor, Maine, has studied mammalian genetics to advance understanding of human disease. Emerging partnerships with the University of Connecticut, the UConn Health Center, area hospitals, health insurers and other organizations ensure that JAX Genomic Medicine will establish Connecticut as a leader in the rapidly growing field of genomic medicine, improving health care while stimulating growth in the bioscience economy.
Questions?
For more information about JAX Genomic Medicine, please contact Mike Hyde, vice president for external affairs and strategic partnerships, at The Jackson Laboratory: mike.hyde@jax.org; 207.288.6049. Or visit www.jax.org/ct.
