Photo / Courtesy City of Portland
The Biodiversity Research Institute recently broke ground on an expansion of its headquarters at 276 Canco Road in Portland.
Updated: 3 hours ago
Life Sciences
Biomedical and conservation research are driving expansion of organizations across Maine
Rendering / Courtesy American Building Group
Biodiversity Research Institute’s expansion is the lighter-shaded building, added to the existing building.
Research organizations across the state have expansion projects in the pipeline, as they tackle various goals to enhance facilities, partnerships, research capabilities and education. There are also varying levels of concern around funding uncertainties at the federal level.
Biodiversity Research Institute expansion on track
Construction of a 5,400-square-foot expansion at the Biodiversity Research Institute in Portland is two months ahead of schedule.
“I hope to be moved in by the end of July,” said David Evers, the institute’s founder, executive director and chief scientist.
The expansion, at the institute’s 276 Canco Road campus, broke ground last November and reflects the conservation research nonprofit’s gradual but steady growth in recent years
In 2024, the staff grew from 51 employees to 60. There are five positions open. Evers said he expects to hire another 10 to 15 people in the coming year.
The added space will have 18 offices, staffed by employees who have already been hired but are working remotely from locations across the U.S.
Evers said he prefers to have staffers in-person and that the new hires are ready to move to Portland.
“We are still growing so we will fill the offices immediately,” he said.
The project has been modified a bit over the months.
“We have a dedicated freezer room for long-term sample management,” said Evers. “For example, we have biotic tissue samples from the late 1990s that we are using to assess PFAS levels in the past.”
The city of Portland helped finance the expansion and leverage further investment through bank partners by issuing a commercial loan from the Portland Development Corp. Coastal Enterprises Inc. and the U.S. Small Business Administration provided assistance.
Evers, a conservation biologist, founded the nonprofit institute in 1998 to assess emerging threats to wildlife and ecosystems through collaborative research. Scientific findings are used to advance environmental awareness and inform decision-makers.
The institute has a nearly $10 million annual budget, four centers of excellence and 16 research programs. Its scientific research spans over 50 countries on five continents.
The expansion is expected to cost close to $3 million, Evers said. The institute has been at the location for a decade, leasing at first and now owning it.
American Building Group, a construction company also at 276 Canco Road, is handling the project. Whipple|Callender Architects in Portland provided the design.
The need for more space is driven by expanded demand for services in several of the institute’s revenue hubs, he said.
That includes consulting government and commercial entities on potential offshore wind sites to identify those with minimal impact on marine life; projects in the carbon credit market that help identify benefits to habitat and communities; and work related to ecotoxicology and contaminants.
Evers said he doesn’t expect the work to be significantly impacted by funding uncertainties at the federal level.
“We purposely have a relatively small, but important, connection [to] the federal government,” he said. “We have been impacted, but in a way that we can pivot to other projects while some federal projects are on pause.”
MDI Bio Lab leads expansion of biomed research and education network
Bar Harbor’s MDI Biological Laboratory is a nonprofit hub for the science of aging and regeneration. It is leading the expansion of the Maine IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence, or INBRE — a network of research and higher education institutions providing hands-on research experience, equipment and financial support for college students and early-career science faculty.
In 2024, the lab received a $19.4 million National Institutes of Health grant to renew and expand INBRE with three new members — University of Southern Maine, Maine Health Institute for Research and University of Maine at Augusta.
Photo / Courtesy MDI Bio Lab
MDI Bio Lab President Hermann Haller demonstrates pipetting techniques with Colby College students at a 2024 INBRE course on the lab’s Bar Harbor campus.
Now totaling 17 members, other members are the University of Maine; UMaine Honors College; UMaine campuses in Fort Kent, Presque Isle, Farmington and Machias; Southern Maine Community College; College of the Atlantic; University of New England; Colby, Bates and Bowdoin; Jackson Laboratory and MDI Bio Lab.
So far, INBRE’s direct investment has been $87 million, with an additional $100 million more supported as research grants.
“In a state like Maine with a small population and a vast geography, it’s our willingness to work together that makes us competitive in the global biomedical world, that helps us to punch above our weight,” Hermann Haller, MDI Bio Lab’s president, has said.
Additional awards
- A $6 million grant renewal from NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences increases researchers’ access to the lab’s light microscopy facility’s magnification and image-processing infrastructure. Last summer, scientists outfitted a laser-based 3D microscope with virtual reality features, allowing users to magnify, view, measure and move around molecular structures of whole organisms as if from the inside. The grant also widens access to the lab’s data science facilities, improves outreach to Maine communities and establishes a paid internship program for animal care.
- $1.6 million in congressionally directed spending for the lab’s entrepreneurial initiative, MDI Bioscience, which develops emerging drug discovery technologies. The funding supports renovation and construction of additional campus space and related equipment purchases. The work is underway.
The lab said NIH’s 15% cap on reimbursements for support services for direct biomedical research, while stayed for the moment, “remains a major threat to MDI Biological Laboratory’s mission to make life-changing discoveries for human health while training a new generation of science leaders.”
The cap would decrease a typical year’s grant support by 27%, including sub-awards to Maine INBRE partners and others.
The measure would slow, and in some cases could end, front-line biomedical research projects; limit training opportunities for college students and early-career scientists; and imperil job stability, the lab said.
Downeast Institute’s capital campaign underway to build affordable housing
Downeast Institute, a marine research laboratory on Great Wass Island in the Washington County town of Beals, launched the public phase of a campaign to raise $4 million in support of the institute’s housing, operations and other capital priorities.
“The campaign is going slowly but surely,” said Dianne Tilton, the institute’s executive director.
A goal is to build affordable housing for staff and visiting researchers.
“Our facility is primed to host some really great research, whether it’s scientists who come for the summer or a scientist who wants to move here,” said Tilton.
But housing is critical. The institute recently interviewed a researcher for an open position.
Rendering / Courtesy James Fahy Design Associates
Downeast Institute’s housing campus will include new and renovated cabins.
“But it’s daunting to move here and not be able to find housing,” she said. “This will help with our efforts to recruit and retain employees.”
In 2023, the institute acquired 10 acres, with five abandoned cabins, close to campus. As of mid-February, the campaign raised $277,000 toward the Phase I goal of $900,000 needed to complete the acquisition.
The plan is to develop the parcel into a housing campus, recruit new permanent staff and expand community outreach by Dec. 31, 2027. Construction would include tearing down and rebuilding at least two of the cabins and renovating the others and a guesthouse on the property.
To that end, Phase II’s goal is an additional $3.1 million. So far, the campaign received a $500,000 grant from the Northern Border Regional Commission.
An environmental review is underway. “We have architect’s renderings and are getting a professional estimate so we are ready to go out to bid when our environmental review is finished,” said Tilton.
James Fahy Design Associates in Rochester, N.Y., was hired for the project. A general contractor will be selected when the project goes out to bid.
In today’s uncertain federal funding climate, Tilton said, the institute hasn’t seen effects as far as existing grants.
But there’s concern about what will become of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, since Sea Grant, its federal-university partnership program, and its Saltonstall-Kennedy Research and Development Program, which assists fishery marketing and research needs, have been funding sources for the institute in the past.
The institute began as a collaboration in 1987. In 2018, it built an expanded $6.6 million marine research laboratory and education center and residence hall. Today the institute has 14 staffers.
Jackson Lab’s $33M expansion to enhance research capacity
Jackson Laboratory — a nonprofit biomedical research institution headquartered in Bar Harbor — has a construction project underway to build a 21,000-square-foot, two-story expansion at its Bar Harbor campus.
The project was originally presented to the Bar Harbor Planning Board as an expansion of the lab’s Rare Disease Translational Center, established in 2022 to research rare diseases and the development of new therapies to treat them.
Rendering / Courtesy The Jackson Laboratory
The Jackson Laboratory’s B80 Research Building will enhance capacity to conduct research across all areas of focus.
Now called the B80 (Building 80) Research Building, it will enhance capacity to conduct JAX research across all areas of focus, including its Rare Disease Translational Center, to develop potential new therapies for people living with rare and many other diseases.
Construction broke ground in January and is on track to be completed in late summer 2026.
Total estimated cost is $32.75 million for design, permitting, construction, equipment and other development costs. Construction alone is estimated at $24.5 million.
Flad Architects in Boston and Portland-based architecture firm Harriman provided the design. The general contractor is Consigli Construction Co.
The expansion will connect to the “Core Research Complex,” a large, interconnected building that houses the lab’s research facilities.
The concept is centered around minimizing disruption to existing conditions and leveraging existing on-campus utility services, driveways and parking lots.
In February, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she heard from JAX, the University of Maine, Maine Medical Center Research Institute, the University of New England, and MDI Biological Laboratory and others regarding the NIH 15% cap on indirect cost reimbursement rates for federal research grants.
In a recent statement, JAX said the planned cap, if implemented, “threatens the entire biomedical research community and has the potential to disrupt discoveries into the lifesaving treatments all Americans depend on.”
“We are working urgently with our partners in government, academia and the research community to address these challenges and to ensure that everyone understands the significant setbacks that would result if such a cap were imposed,” JAX said.
JAX has 1,694 workers at its Bar Harbor campus. That includes 1,463 employees and over 200 non-employees including students, visiting scientists, contractors and others.
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