2025 Donor Impact Report Stronger together A bold year of breakthroughs
At The Jackson Laboratory, the year 2025 brought a myriad of moments to celebrate the connections that strengthen us — especially those in our generous community of donors like you.
Here's how you have made a difference in this historic year.
Message from our president and CEO
Dear friends,
When I reflect on 2025, one thing is clear: the discoveries shaping the future of medicine are happening faster than ever before. Some breakthroughs that once took decades are now happening in months, giving us insight into a future where every human health challenge has safe, effective solutions developed at an unprecedented pace. As part of JAX's generous community of donors, your support is helping to accelerate our work at a crucial, historic moment for biomedical science, and I am most grateful.
This new trajectory represents a transformation across medicine, one that relies on collaboration, integrated disease models and leading-edge technologies. This is precisely the environment JAX is built for. I am delighted to share this reflection on the difference your support has made over the last year. Thanks to you, JAX is changing lives and redefining what is possible for human health.
For decades, JAX has invested in the foundational science that accelerates translation from the lab into the clinic. That commitment is reflected in our acquisition of The New York Stem Cell Foundation. Together, we are uniting stem cell science, advanced mouse models, and AI into an integrated discovery platform designed to make precision medicine a reality for more patients, more quickly.
You'll see how your support of this approach has advanced insights across cancer, aging, heart and brain health and more. Your generosity positions JAX to lead discovery, catalyze partnerships that drive innovation and train new generations of scientists who will shape the future of biomedicine.
Thank you for your role in an exceptional year for JAX, and for your continued partnership as we embark on a visionary path toward the future.
Clinical Impact
At the heart of our work is a mission to transform discoveries from the lab into new therapies for patients facing the major health challenges of our time.
Your gift helped JAX physician-scientists bring their work directly to the clinic, making a difference for patients when they need it most.
A better way to diagnose brain cancer
Roxanne Leet is a patient with brain cancer who is receiving treatment with the help of JAX's Maine Cancer Genomics Initiative. Find out how genomic testing at JAX revealed an unexpected finding that changed her diagnosis and helped her care team develop a personalized treatment strategy.
Aging Research
You've fueled research collaborations that have helped us understand the biology of aging and unlock clues on how to live healthier for longer.
The memory link: Lipids and Alzheimer's disease
How does the brain stay sharp as we age? And what happens when it doesn't? Associate professor and neuroscientist Kristen O'Connell is tackling these questions head-on. Her research explores how different regions of the brain communicate, how that communication breaks down in diseases like Alzheimer's and how that loss affects memory and identity. It's a complex puzzle, but one she's determined to solve.
You've enabled a new generation of curious, talented scientists to experience an immersive summer of research, mentorship and adventure.
‘The community that comes with the science’
Programs like the SSP give young scientists like me a chance to express our intellect and learn skills that will serve us well no matter what field we pursue. Supporting research opportunities like this, and nurturing a passion for science, is more important now than ever. It is a true investment in the future of humanity.Travis Beckett, SSP '24
Travis Beckett at the 2024 Summer Student Program Commencement ceremony with mentors in the Bult lab. From left: Carol Bult, Ph.D., Julie Wells, Ph.D., Travis Beckett and Naomi Mitchell-Hutchinson.
Travis Beckett, SSP '24, had never been further east than New York before arriving at JAX's Bar Harbor, Maine campus for the SSP 's 10 weeks of mentored research and immersion in the JAX scientific community. Here's how his summer experience shaped his first year as a science educator.
Mia Crawford SSP '25 and her mother, Hara Levy, M.D., SSP '80. Levy is a physician-scientist and professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin.
One unique feature of the SSP 2025 cohort was a shared experience 45 years in the making. Hara Levy graduated from the SSP in 1980 and went on to pursue a career in medicine that continues to this day. Last summer, her daughter Mia Crawford worked with JAX professor and senior director of genetic resource science Steven Murray on a research project that explored the genetics of craniofacial development and birth defects.
Throughout Mia's childhood, her mother's dinner-table stories from a formative summer at JAX — Highseas barbeques, walks to and from the lab, a trip to Canada's Campobello Island, and sunrise hikes on Cadillac Mountain — nurtured her passion for science. In the Murray lab, hands-on research taught her to push boundaries, tolerate uncertainty and ask bold, creative questions. “My JAX experience taught me so much about myself as a researcher, person and student,” she said.
For mom Hara, the SSP was equally formative. She credits the program with setting her on a lifelong path in medicine and research. “What has always stood out to me about JAX is its steady commitment to its summer students. The care, mentorship and high expectations I experienced years ago are the same qualities Mia encountered this past summer.”
Your generosity made it possible for Mia to take her lifelong passion for science to the next level, with resources and mentors she wouldn't find anywhere else. Thank you for supporting those who will follow in her footsteps!
Watching Mia step into that environment felt less like revisiting my own past and more like seeing the program continue to do what it does best, giving young scientists the structure, challenge and support they need to find their footing. Seeing the program continue to offer students the same opportunities that once shaped my own path is a powerful reminder of its enduring impact.Hara Levy, M.D., SSP '80
Our bold new chapter:
JAX and NYSCF “tie the ribbon”
In a special ceremony at the JAX-NYSCF Collaborative in Manhattan, JAX celebrated the completion of its acquisition of The New York Stem Cell Foundation. Our newly expanded community came together to toast a shared mission, a bright future and the connections that make us stronger.
At its core, JAX's unification with The New York Stem Cell Foundation brings together stem cells, mouse models, data analysis and machine learning into a new discovery platform that will help discoveries happen faster.
Here's how this union builds on work supported by your generous gifts.
MorPhic: Cellular modeling at scale
With your help, JAX professors Bill Skarnes and Paul Robson are taking decades of experience in mouse genetics and applying it to human cells. They are leading a nationwide consortium known as MorPhiC (Molecular Phenotypes of Null Alleles in Cells) to determine the function of every human gene by "turning off” each one and seeing how living cells respond.
You have powered collaborative research into the biology of cancer and advanced our understanding of why treatment responses differ by patient.
Transforming breast and ovarian cancer treatment
Edison Liu, M.D., and Francesca Menghi, Ph.D.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of women face aggressive breast and ovarian cancers with few effective treatment options. For these patients, time is precious. Too often, that precious time is spent trying treatments that don't work for every patient.
At the JAX Cancer Center, researchers Edison Liu and Francesca Menghi have discovered a way to change that. Their breakthrough has the potential to transform how these cancers are diagnosed and treated. This could improve care for 430,000 women each year worldwide.
Using cutting-edge genomic analysis, Liu and Menghi identified four distinct molecular subtypes within these aggressive cancers, each tied to how well a patient responds to chemotherapy. From these insights, they developed a Combined Response Classifier, a predictive algorithm that reveals powerful genomic signals that for the first time enable us to accurately predict which patients will — and won't — respond to standard chemotherapy.
This simple but powerful tool could ensure that every woman receives the treatment most likely to save her life — right from the start.
Reproductive Health
You have helped accelerate research around reproductive health, giving an often-overlooked and neglected area of research the visibility it needs and deserves.
Detecting and preventing pregnancy-related complications
Postdoctoral associate Ramalakshmi Ramasamy investigates cell growth in early human development, specifically placental cells, to understand how their function changes as pregnancy progresses. She studies a process called cellular senescence, or the process by which cells stop dividing. Her work has implications for reproductive health, including better detection and prevention of certain pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia, which affects one in 12 pregnancies globally.
Ramasamy spoke about her work during the fall 2025 installment of “Scientifically Speaking,” JAX's virtual series that highlights the work of early-career scientists.
