The Jackson Laboratory

1980

Biomedical Research and Animal Research Laboratories completed (Snell wing).

1980

Charity Waymouth appointed interim director.

1980

George D. Snell, Senior Staff Scientist Emeritus, accepts the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology.

1981

Barbara Hugus Sanford named director.

1983

National Cancer Institute awards CORE grant, making The Jackson Laboratory the only mammalian laboratory designated as a Cancer Center.

1984

Joseph Nadeau and Ben Taylor's analysis of 83 genes in mice and humans indicates that the mouse genome is an extremely good model for the human genome—but with 150 rearrangements.

1988

Barbara Sanford retires; Donald Bailey becomes interim director.

1989

On May 10, a fire destroys the Morrell Park mouse production facility; half a million mice are lost. Kenneth Paigen, whose appointment as the next director was to begin in October, is visiting the Lab that day and immediately takes over as director.