Libra Foundation Makes $500,000 Gift to The Jackson Laboratory

Date: September 11, 2003

Bar Harbor, Maine - The Libra Foundation of Portland, Maine, has made a $500,000 gift towards The Jackson Laboratory's recently announced capital campaign in support of a major research expansion.

"We at the Libra Foundation are very proud to support The Jackson Laboratory as they expand their ability to conduct groundbreaking research in genetics. We also expect that our gifts will help The Jackson Laboratory to become an even greater positive economic force for Eastern Maine," said Libra President Owen Wells.

Jackson Laboratory and Libra Foundation Trustee Henry Brooks agrees. "In my 30 years of association with the Laboratory, I have watched it grow into a mature, highly productive organization," he said. "Over the past eight years, the Libra Foundation has given generously to assist this growth, donating its financial support to all three areas of the Laboratory's mission: education, resources, and research."

The gift will help to fund a 53,200-square-foot research wing including eight new laboratories, thus increasing laboratory space at the Bar Harbor institution by 34 percent. The Jackson Laboratory projects that the research expansion will add more than 100 new scientific, technical and administrative support jobs.

According to Jackson Laboratory Director Rick Woychik, Ph.D., increasing the Laboratory's research capacity at this time is of critical importance. "Today's medicine treats disease symptoms, and not always successfully," he notes. "In order to move quickly to the next era of medicine, in which we prevent disease by altering the systems or disrupting the processes that lead to disease, we have to gain more knowledge of human genetics." The best way to do this, Dr. Woychik says, is by studying the mouse as a model for human disease, "and The Jackson Laboratory is the world center for these studies."

On August 16, The Jackson Laboratory kicked off the public phase of the 5-year, $85 million capital campaign for the building project, of which $46 million-including the Libra gift-is already pledged or in hand.

Established by Elizabeth Noyce in 1989, the Libra Foundation is a private philanthropic foundation with approximately $300 million in assets today. The foundation funds nonprofit institutions throughout Maine in a variety of areas including health research. The new gift brings total Libra Foundation funding of The Jackson Laboratory to date to $1.6 million.

Contact(s): Jade Harmer, Public Information Office, (207) 288-6051

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