Jackson Lab lands federal grant to study Alzheimer’s disease

The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor has been awarded a $2.67 million federal grant over five years that will fund studies of the complex processes involved in both healthy aging and Alzheimer’s disease.

“Approximately 5.4 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease today, including 37,000 in Maine, and that number is soaring as our overall population grows older and lives longer,” U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in a joint statement with U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, announcing the award. “As the founder and co-chair of the Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer’s, I have worked to significantly increase federal investments in biomedical research to support the exciting developments underway to solve the mystery of Alzheimer’s. The skilled scientists at Jackson Lab are global leaders in biomedical research, and this grant will bring them one step closer to identifying a means of prevention, treatment, or cure for this devastating disease.”

King noted the federal funds will help researchers and scientists at Jackson Laboratory “better understand Alzheimer’s disease and, hopefully, develop effective strategies that will one day help us find a cure so that no person or family will have to confront this terrible disease again.”

Jackson Laboratory researcher Catherine Kaczorowski stated in a news release that her lab’s research complements the work in the new $25 million Alzheimer’s Disease Precision Model Center at JAX and Indiana University. That center is aimed at creating dozens of new mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease; study their physiology, behavior and genomes for disease relevance; and discover and test potential Alzheimer’s disease treatments.

“Together, JAX researchers are exploring the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to healthy brain aging, with the goal of reducing the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease,” Kaczorowski comments.

The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution based in Bar Harbor, with a National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center, a facility in Sacramento, Calif., and a genomic medicine institute in Farmington, Conn. It has 1,900 employees.