News & notes
JAX—West opens new facility
The Jackson Laboratory opened a small facility in West Sacramento, Calif., in 2001. Now, with a newly renovated 85,000-square-foot facility in Sacramento, The Jackson Laboratory—West can offer a much wider range of mice and services directly to the California research community. The Laboratory celebrated the opening of the new facility in May with a Grand Opening and Symposium.
"Today the Laboratory's sale of mice on the West Coast is growing rapidly, and its in vivo services are in demand throughout the scientific world," says Jackson Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Chuck Hewett, Ph.D. The new JAX—West space will enable more extensive in vivo service offerings, including cancer and stem cell research collaborations. California officials have noticed the Laboratory's expanded presence and recently awarded JAX—West a significant stem cell research grant.
The staff is dedicated to providing a pathogen-free environment for the laboratory animals and meeting the highest federal, state and voluntary standards for animal care, genetic quality control and health status. About 100 employees work in the new Sacramento facility.
Aging experiment gains worldwide attention
In a finding that garnered international headlines, Jackson Laboratory Professor David Harrison, Ph.D., and colleagues reported that they were able to extend the life span of aging mice with a drug. The paper, published online in Nature in July, is the first report of a pharmacological intervention that lengthens the life of mammals.
The researchers used rapamycin, which has been shown to extend life span in yeast, worms and flies and is commonly given to human organ transplant recipients to prevent immune rejection of the new organ. When given to mice late in life, rapamycin extended the median and maximal life span of the treated animals by 9 to 14 percent.
Harrison et al. don't see rapamycin as a potential longevity drug because its immunosuppressive effects make those who take it highly susceptible to infectious diseases. Nonetheless, its mechanism is well understood, so the study results open potential avenues for improving treatment and prevention of age-related diseases and conditions.
Douglas Coleman wins Shaw Prize, creates endowments
Senior Staff Scientist Emeritus Douglas Coleman, Ph.D., received notice in June that he had won the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine, widely regarded as the "Nobel of the East." Coleman, whose obesity and diabetes research during his 33 years at The Jackson Laboratory provided a foundation for much of today's research in the field, will share the prize with Jeffrey Friedman, M.D., Ph.D., of Rockefeller University. The two will also share the $1 million award. With his prize earnings, Coleman established two $100,000 endowments to support research and education at the Laboratory.
Coleman, who retired from the Laboratory in 1991, isolated what he described as a "satiety factor" that played a crucial role in weight regulation and diabetes in certain mice. Friedman later identified the factor as the hormone leptin and demonstrated that chemical and genetic factors, not just eating habits, contribute to obesity.
Coleman will formally receive the Shaw Prize at a ceremony in Hong Kong in October. His many other honors include election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1998 and the 2005 Gairdner Foundation Award.
New research facility construction under way
The Jackson Laboratory will soon have a lot more elbow room for its research and development efforts.
Bolstered by a $4.7 million award from the Maine Technology Asset Fund, the Laboratory broke ground in August for a new mouse-importation research facility. The 22,500-square-foot building will greatly expand the Laboratory's ability to receive and characterize mice from other research institutions, and it will also free up significant space for other research. The building is scheduled for completion in late 2010.
The space should facilitate the development of new equipment, techniques and services that can be commercialized in partnership with Maine companies.
Leukemia stem cell finding employs unlikely resource
Research at The Jackson Laboratory has yielded a new approach to treating leukemia, by targeting leukemia stem cells with a drug that's already on the market.
In research published in June in the journal Nature Genetics, researchers led by Jackson Adjunct Professor Shaoguang Li, M.D., Ph.D., identified a gene involved with the inflammatory response that could hold the key to treating or even preventing chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), a lethal cancer. The gene, Alox5, is known to process essential fatty acids into leukotrienes, important agents in the inflammatory response. According to the researchers, it is vital to the development and maintenance of cancer stem cells.
The study found that the drug Zileuton, a known inhibitor of the Alox5 pathway and already a common asthma medication, proved to be a better therapy for CML in mice than Imatinib, the most effective current leukemia medication. The two drugs combined were better still. More study is needed, but the potential for rapid and effective translation of the findings to the clinic is high.
