Richard Woychik to step down

Jackson Laboratory President and CEO Richard Woychik, Ph.D., has asked Laboratory trustees to begin the search for his successor. Woychik will continue in his current capacity during the search for the new CEO.

"When I came to the Laboratory seven years ago, my goals were to stabilize the Laboratory's finances and to explore new areas of scientific research," says Woychik. "We have achieved these goals, creating a firm foundation upon which the organization can build. It is time for new leadership to take the Laboratory to the next level of excellence."

During Woychik's tenure, the Laboratory has seen significant growth. The budget has increased from $103.8 million to $170 million, the workforce has grown from 1,162 to 1,318 employees, and more than 118,000 square feet of new research and support space has been constructed or renovated.

In a message to employees, Board Chair Brian Wruble wrote, "The Lab has come a long way since Rick became director, and he deserves a great deal of credit for our progress. I believe that the Laboratory is in better condition, both scientifically and financially, than it has been at any time since I joined the board 18 years ago."

The Jackson Laboratory eyes Florida institute

The Jackson Laboratory is assessing the feasibility of establishing a new research institute in southwestern Florida. The project took a step forward in April when the Florida legislature included an earmark for the institute in its draft budget.

The Naples, Fla., site would provide a more direct bridge between the Laboratory's genetics research and clinical progress. It would also provide close access to many potential collaborators, including branches of Scripps, Sanford-Burnham and several other research institutions. If funded, the Naples branch of the Laboratory would anchor a large-scale research and education community envisioned by regional planners.

The Laboratory's base of operations will continue to be in Bar Harbor, Maine. The institution will retain its current research and other programs, and planning projections call for continued growth of the Maine campus.

Sperm production discovery catches attention

Professor Robert Braun, Ph.D., works with reproductive cell development pathways. Someday his work may lead to infertility treatments or even the long-sought male birth control pill. In the meantime, Braun's discoveries about just how germline stem cells develop into sperm were published in the April 2, 2010, issue of Science, catching the eyes of editors at National Geographic. They, in turn, caught a lot of other eyes with an article headlined, "How man produces 1,500 sperm a second."

Braun's work demonstrates that sperm production is more complex than previously thought. There are more possible development pathways than the simple, two-step process previously identified. And the process can even be reversed partway through.

"The more we learn about the normal behavior of cells," says Braun, "the more we know how to manipulate them."

Grant expands muscular dystrophy research resources

The U.S. Department of Defense awarded $1.44 million to The Jackson Laboratory to expand resources devoted to finding a cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and other neuromuscular disorders.

DMD is a devastating disease of progressive muscular degeneration. One in 3,500 children—mostly boys—is born with the disease, making it the most common form of muscular dystrophy and affecting about 40 families in Maine. Survival into the thirties is rare.

Championed by Rep. Mike Michaud, with support from fellow Rep. Chellie Pingree, the funding will allow the Laboratory's Genetic Resource Science Repository to maintain current DMD mouse models and import others. The mice will then be readily available to researchers across the nation, including Associate Professor Greg Cox, Ph.D., who studies DMD and other neurodegenerative disorders at the Laboratory.

New faculty member makes neurobiology visible

Da-Ting Lin, Ph.D., currently completing a postdoctoral position at The Johns Hopkins University, will join The Jackson Laboratory's faculty in June.

Lin works with a major family of neurological receptors, known as AMPARs, in the brain. AMPARs are vital to the brain's ability to learn and adapt to changing environmental stimuli. Defects or changes in their function are thought to play significant roles in various mental illnesses.

Unlike most researchers, who study the receptors on the cell surface, Lin studies how they are "trafficked"—assembled and transported—within the cell itself. Recent research has demonstrated that AMPAR function depends on them actually making it to the surface of the cell, so trafficking them there is a vital process. Lin is using innovative custom optical approaches of his own design to see how many receptors are produced versus how many are actually trafficked to the cell surface.

"The more we can understand about the process, the better we'll be able to control how many receptors make it to the surface of the cell," says Lin. "The hope is that we will be able to find interventions that shut down a percentage of function rather than all of it, giving the therapeutic benefit with fewer and less severe side effects."

New members elected to Board of Trustees

The Jackson Laboratory has elected two of the nation's leading technology executives to its Board of Trustees.

Louis J. D'Ambrosio is a former vice president of IBM's Worldwide Sales and Marketing Software division and former president and CEO of Avaya Inc., an international telecommunications firm. D'Ambrosio received his M.B.A. from Harvard University and began his telecommunications career at AT&T

Anthony Evnin, Ph.D., is a general partner at Venrock Associates, the venture capital arm of the Rockefeller family. Evnin built the Venrock firm's health care franchise, helping to shape the modern biotechnology industry. Previously Dr. Evnin was director of product development at Story Chemical, and was a research scientist and group leader in organic chemistry at Union Carbide. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

New consortium aims to improve cancer research

The Jackson Laboratory has teamed up with the University of California, Davis to build a shared resource for cancer research. Located at the JAX—West facility in Sacramento, Calif., the resource, called the Primary Human Tumors Consortium, will collect and make available a library of primary human tumors for research and drug development.

Researchers have traditionally relied on tumor cell lines grown in tissue culture; these have proven unpredictable in developing effective new therapies. Newly resected human tumors that can be studied in special mouse models offer a more effective way to develop and test cancer therapies. In this way, mouse models of virtually any kind of cancer can be developed, providing a much more individualized approach to finding new treatments.

The biomedical research community needs a common, readily accessible resource to support this vital effort," says Vice President and COO Charles Hewett, Ph.D. "No single cancer center has a sufficiently broad patient population to meet this need, so we must work together if we hope to compress the drug discovery timeline and ultimately save lives."

Cancer diagnostics move ahead

It turns out that, in cancer, just learning that a gene is being expressed—and that a protein is being produced—doesn't tell enough of the diagnostic story.

Recent research by Assistant Professor Kevin Mills, Ph.D., and Associate Professor Joel Graber, Ph.D., demonstrates that the forms of messenger RNA (mRNA) that provide the protein templates playa significant role in determining how the cancer progresses and what therapies might work best to stop it.

In findings published in Cancer Research in December 2009, Mills and Graber worked with three forms of lymphoma, a childhood blood cancer. The variations were indistinguishable using standard methods but led to three distinct survival rates. By looking at the different forms of mRNA in the cancer cells, however, they were able to distinguish between the three different forms of cancer. Indeed, they could identify the subtypes with far greater accuracy than by using traditional diagnostic methods. Clinically, the technique has the potential to yield far more accurate diagnoses.

We want to find targeted ways to treat each patient's cancer, based on that child's own genetic makeup," says Mills. "We want to have a better idea of which patients can respond to and tolerate a treatment."

Glenn Close first female to have genome fully sequenced

While more than a dozen publicly named subjects have had their full genomes sequenced and published, until very recently they were all male. That changed when popular actress and Jackson Laboratory supporter Glenn Close, working with Illumina Inc., announced the full sequencing of her genome.

Close, whose family history includes bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, is an advocate for mental illness research and awareness. Her genome sequence will allow for in-depth analysis of genomic characteristics such as insertions, deletions and rearrangements. In addition, her genome yielded 379,000 variations of single bases not previously found in the male genomes.

In addition to providing the sequencing service that supplied Close's genome sequence, Illumina manufactures next generation (or "nextgen") sequencers that are helping make genomic sequencing far faster and less expensive. The Laboratory recently acquired one of Illumina's nextgen sequencers.