BAR HARBOR, Maine — The National Institutes of Health invested $109 million in Maine’s 11 bioscience institutions last year.
Of those dollars, $74 million — an overwhelming majority — went to The Jackson Laboratory. The lab’s senior vice president of research, Dr. Ken Fasman, said the NIH provided 88% of the laboratory's total grant funding. He said his scientists went into research overdrive during the pandemic, making the world-renowned facility even more valuable to U.S. health needs.
"And that’s on top of the work that we do routinely in cancer, neurological diseases, immunological diseases," Fasman said of his team. "So, we put COVID on top of all of our other priorities. And, so that, in part, was why we had a banner year in terms of funding in ’21."
The NIH reported that, as a result of 2021's funding, 1,800 jobs were supported and $255 million in "economic activity" was supported in Maine.