Your support of The Jackson Laboratory fuels ideas, change and innovation. It is the spark that ignites and accelerates discovery. Thank you for sparking our curiosity, our creativity and our drive to transform the future of human health.
Here’s what you have helped make possible at JAX.
Message from our president and CEO
Dear friends,
This has been an extraordinary year of discovery and achievement at The Jackson Laboratory. Your support of our vision for a healthier future has helped make each exciting moment possible, and I am deeply grateful for your partnership.
In sharing this update, I am delighted to celebrate your impact at JAX and your role in shaping a remarkable year. One of the highlights was the 100th anniversary of our Summer Student Program (SSP), where we welcomed 142 SSP alumni and guests back to our Bar Harbor campus in a powerful reminder of the transformative impact of discovery. Propelled by a decade of your support, our Farmington campus, The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, celebrated 10 years of specialized research that has changed what we know about the complex role of genomics in human health and disease. And across the institution, our scientists produced landmark studies on longevity, cognitive decline and the diet-health connection. Every milestone and discovery we celebrated this year has been fueled by your generosity and your belief in our shared commitment to improving human health.
You amplify and accelerate this crucial work by enabling our scientists to follow the spark of a new idea, to change direction in their research and to pursue higher-risk projects that traditional funding simply won’t allow. You have inspired our scientists to advance groundbreaking research on a range of health challenges including cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, rare disease and more. I hope you enjoy reading about the difference you’ve made at JAX. Thank you for making the flame of discovery burn brighter, lighting the way to a healthier future.
You've inspired our cancer researchers to make progress in the earlier detection, prevention and treatment of breast cancer.
It means so much to me to have had access to the incredible research opportunities at JAX. From here, I am headed to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital to join their Molecular and Developmental Biology Graduate Program. I know I wouldn’t be going to a program of this caliber unless I’d had the benefit of the Postbac at JAX program. The program is also so important because it focuses on providing opportunities for people like me from backgrounds that are underrepresented in science fields. I’m grateful to everyone who advocates for us and helps us pursue careers in science.Paige Ramkissoon 2024 Postbaccalaureate Fellow
Paige Ramkissoon also pursued cancer research at JAX through the Postbac at JAX program, a two-year individualized fellowship that provides recent college graduates hands-on lab experience, opportunities for professional development and personalized graduate school preparation and community-building among groups underrepresented in the sciences.
In the Bult lab, Paige studied cancer metastasis, or the process by which cancer spreads from one site to another. Your generosity has helped young scientists like Paige leverage JAX’s educational offerings to prepare them for their next steps.
You have fueled a deeper understanding of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia
With your help, JAX researchers have continued to make crucial strides in understanding the biology of Alzheimer’s disease. Your support has helped drive the search for better models and new ways of diagnosing, treating and preventing Alzheimer’s disease.
Here are two examples.
Donor funds have an outsized impact on the research we do. Philanthropic funding is where we look to carry out our most innovative ideas, the ones that have the potential to transform our programs and the lab.Professor Greg Carter, Ph.D. Bernard and Lusia Milch Endowed Chair
You’ve sparked hope and progress toward clinical treatment for patients living with rare diseases.
Mary Saladino (right) with her husband Anthony and son Henry.
‘You give us such hope’ : A mother’s gratitude
When I want to cry for all that AHC forces us to endure, I tell Henry about all of the helpers who are trying to make his seizures go away and help his body move better, and sometimes that realization is the only thing that helps us hang on. You give us such hope and your work to prioritize the testing of therapeutics really matters to our family.-Mary Saladino, Henry's mom President and Co-Founder, For Henry AHC
Like many kids his age, Henry Saladino loves to read books, listen to music, and play with his beloved stuffed lion. Unlike most other four-year-olds, he just learned to walk last year, at age three.
Henry suffers from Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood (AHC), a rare genetic disease that causes paralysis, low muscle tone and seizures. His symptoms include debilitating seizures, muscle spasms and apnea. In their search for a first-ever treatment for AHC, Henry's family has partnered with the Rare Disease Translational Center to develop a mouse model for his condition.
JAX has succeeded in creating multiple mouse models. The RDTC’s unique approach allowed researchers to generate mouse models with Henry’s precise mutation that survived long enough to test a new therapeutic strategy known as an antisense oligonucleotide (ASO). The ASO is designed to “silence” the allele that carries the dominant mutation responsible for Henry’s condition.
With your help, JAX is closing in on a therapy for Henry. Scientists at the RDTC have designed ASOs and will use them in Henry’s mouse model. This critical experiment will determine how much to silence the gene and what cell types in the brain must be targeted to alleviate the seizures. In parallel, JAX is performing dose ranging studies for ASOs to determine a safe, effective level for Henry’s treatment.
JAX’s partners at Boston Children’s Hospital hope their data will enable them to apply for an “N of 1” clinical trial, meaning Henry would be the single subject, by spring 2025.
The RDTC is striving to help rare diseases be more rapidly diagnosed, and for new treatments to be made available to more patients. Only JAX has the tools and expertise to make that future a reality.
The work of the Rare Disease Translational Center was featured at the Forum for Discovery, JAX’s annual summer event featuring scientists at the forefront of research that is shaping human health. Watch to learn more about the difference your support makes at the RDTC.
You've helped educate generations of aspiring scientists through the Summer Student Program.
Summer Student Program alumni at the Highseas estate during the SSP's 100th anniversary celebration in Bar Harbor.
As the Summer Student Program (SSP) enters its second century, you're ensuring that this signature educational offering will continue sparking curiosity in future generations of scientists.
To mark the 100th anniversary of the Summer Student Program, JAX hosted a series of virtual and in-person events allowing alumni across the globe to reconnect and relive the memories of what many still consider to be one of their best summers ever.
In July, a special two-day celebration in Bar Harbor brought together more than 100 alumni and guests from every decade since the 1940s. This reunion gave the class of 2024 a unique opportunity to network with alumni and hear from past participants about how the program evolved over time.
See what 100 years of discovery looks like in our special retrospective.
An SSP alumnus returns to lead
Raheem Khadour, SSP ’23 attended the SSP centennial with several JAX credentials to his name — as not only an alumnus, but also a part-time JAX research fellow who returned to serve as a resident assistant this past summer. Here’s how his journey at JAX has unfolded with the help of your support.
I hope that one day I can do for someone else what my cardiologist did for me and help put patients at ease. It feels like such a rewarding path to follow in life, and a chance to do something good in the world.Raheem Khadour, SSP ’23
Lab friends for life
Michelle Josephson, M.D., Sue Tarnofsky, D.D.S., and Beth Warach, J.D., met in the Summer Student Program in the summer of 1974. Fifty years later, their friendship is still going strong.
Living at Highseas felt like one big family, I don't think I'd ever met people from so many different parts of the country before. That was really exciting, and it was exciting to be with people with whom you felt you had a fair amount in common.Sue Tarnofsky, D.D.S., SSP ’74
JAX remembers Cindy Johnson
Cindy and Ed Johnson were experts at sparking interest in JAX. They generously gave their time and resources to advance the Laboratory’s commitment to human health. JAX remembers our friend Cindy who passed away in May 2024, surviving Ed by 12 years and leaving behind a legacy of grace, grit and generosity.
Through the flexibility of the President's Fund, you're supporting discoveries across the Laboratory.
Your gifts to the President's Fund allow us to deploy resources where they are needed most in our shared quest to build a healthier, more hopeful future. You’ve helped spark research innovations in machine learning, infectious diseases and more.
Associate Professor Vivek Kumar, Ph.D., is using computer vision to eliminate stress on mice involved in preclinical research.
Eat less, live longer? Gary Churchill, Ph.D., professor and Karl Gunnar Johansson Chair for Genomics and Computational Biology, investigates the impact of restrictive diets on lifespan.
Listen to a podcast about the study
Silke Paust, Ph.D., is investigating roles that natural killer cells in the lungs play in clearing influenza virus infection and preventing damage to healthy cells during infection.
Silke was among the four scientists who presented at the Women X Women event, featuring science and research powered by women at JAX.
Your legacy, your impact
JAX envisions a world in which even more of our scientists see their discoveries being translated into clinical advances that bring hope to those affected by the great human health challenges of our time. Planned gifts play a crucial role in moving those efforts forward. Thank you for partnering with us to imagine and create a healthier future.
$30.9M in planned gifts comitted in the last decade to shape JAX’s future
111 members of Society for Discovery, JAX's exclusive community of planned giving donors
Envisioning a healthier future: Donor spotlight on Greg and Harriet Boyko
The decision to support JAX in our estate plan was an easy one. We stand in awe of what you do. And if we can help in the smallest way, we're proud that we can.Harriet Boyko
Greg and Harriet Boyko were inspired to dedicate their planned gift to two specific areas of research: mental health and neurodevelopmental disease, as they have a history of such conditions on both sides of their family. Their gift to the Rare Disease Translational Center, with a special focus on neurodevelopmental disorders, will do just that.
