Jackson Laboratory

A roundup of new hires, promotions and achievements at businesses, nonprofits, health care institutions and professional services firms in Maine.

The Bar Harbor lab is the first research institution in Maine to be awarded a grant from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H.

Jackson Lab built a child care center on its Bar Harbor campus and began operations in early 2024 with Down East Family YMCA as the operator.

The deal “marks a turning point for biomedical research,” combining genetics expertise with automation technologies, which could accelerate therapies for diseases like cancer.

“JAX and most other research institutions will be at best much smaller than they are today, and some won’t exist. You can’t recover from that,” said the head of Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor.

In Maine, National Institutes of Health grants and contracts support 1,468 jobs and $286 million in economic activity. 

The 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.

Research organizations across the state have expansion projects in the pipeline as they tackle various goals to enhance facilities, partnerships, research capabilities and education.

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From new construction to consolidation, AI and workforce training, the health industry was plenty busy over the past year.