How a program created by Congress makes a huge difference for young scientists.
8 Virtuous Cycle
An early Maine INBRE scholar’s career path shifted to biology, and took off.
10 A Collaborative Network Expands
The Maine INBRE wins new funding, with new members and more diverse perspectives.
16 This Is Why:
Securing a Family Legacy Philanthropists honor their parents by endowing a treasured laboratory tradition.
18 Lab Notes
A new type of stem cell sheds light on regeneration and other investigative breakthroughs.
Art Meets Science
A Laboratory art installation, Images of Science, holds that art and science offer legitimate ways to better comprehend our world. What can we learn from nature through the lens of a scientific mind? What do we see in nature through an artistic lens? In these woodcut collages, Colby College Assistant Professor Amanda Lilleston leads us into the anatomical theater.
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Growing from a Firm Foundation
It’s summer on Salisbury Cove, and the MDI Bio Lab campus is at its busiest. Our summer fellows have flooded the laboratories and the lawns, adding youthful enthusiasm to our scientific enterprise.
But this year our ranks swelled even farther by a wave of new graduate students from the U.S. and abroad. They are providing an extra jolt of energy to life here — a year-round research workforce fueling the next phase of discovery.
Optimizing Our Potential
MDI Bio Lab is on the move, and growing our research training programs is an essential element of our new strategic vision. We want to bring the number of research groups here up to 15 and support them with the resources necessary to keep them at the cutting edge of biomedical science.
That’s why our century-old campus continues to see substantial renovations and improvements, including a new modular home to provide suite-style living for graduate students. We are still bursting at our seams, but we are confident that by the end of the decade, we will reach the ideal size for a small but mighty research institute.
Elevating
the Next Generation
Our scientific goals are nothing less than to radically improve human health and ease the struggles of aging. But our dual mission includes a passionate commitment to tomorrow’s scientists, a commitment validated this year when the National Institutes of Health chose MDI Bio Lab once again to lead and expand the Maine IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE).
The Maine INBRE is a statewide research and training network that for 23 consecutive years has quietly spurred Maine’s biomedical economy forward. invite you to read all about that and much more in this edition of Breaking
With appreciation and gratitude,
Hermann Haller, M.D. President
2,600
The INBRE Advantage: Inspiring Curiosity, Building Capacity
$110M
Southern Maine Community College student
Samuel Cousins got his first taste of advanced biomedical research in January, during a course taught at
MDI Biological Laboratory. The 21-year old Gorham native spent the week measuring stem cell activity in flatworms. “Before this it was all in my head. It was mostly book-learning,” Cousins says.
Cousins comes from a small family — both his parents are schoolteachers. He floated a bit after graduating from Gorham High School, taking jobs here and there, not sure what he wanted to do.
Now he is earning a two-year certificate in biotechnology at SMCC, which participates in a statewide network of 17 higher education and biomedical research institutions known as the Maine INBRE. Funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences, the network has been led by MDI Bio Lab since 2001
Thanks to the collaborative partnerships the INBRE encourages and supports, Cousins was able to participate in research at a level that otherwise might have been out of reach.
During snowy days of training and inquiry on MDI Bio Lab’s campus, they learned and used several state-of-the-art techniques for examining biomolecular activities in Planarian flatworms, while they addressed novel questions about stem cells, DNA, proteins and regeneration.
“It’s totally immersive,” Cousins says, growing animated as he describes a method for tagging a piece of DNA to follow its molecular
activities. “I’d read about the technique, I’d taken exams on it, but this was the first time I got to actually use it.”
Awakening that kind of verve for the work of science is at the heart of the Maine INBRE’s collaborative mission and its success.
Since its inception more than two decades ago the network has helped more than 2,600 undergraduates like Cousins get direct exposure to bonafide research via short classes or extended fellowships with network members.
And the mission encompasses much more. The INBRE program has also invested in and improved scientific infrastructure and equipment that’s shared among network members, such as cutting-edge microscopy facilities and data science expertise.
It’s also provided financial support to talented young investigators as they set out on scientific careers of their own, and compete for independent federal research awards. All in all, the program has significantly expanded the technical, intellectual and workforce capital that Maine needs to fully participate in the 21st century’s biomedical revolution.
Patricia Hand, Ph.D. (top, center), was the first director of the Maine INBRE, which would grow from an initial eight collaborating institutions to 17 today.
The federally funded INBRE program helps rural states like Maine build out their biomedical research capacity.
For nearly a quarter century, the Maine INBRE has been providing genuine research experience to budding young scientists.
created and sustained in Maine
+ students in Maine have received hands-on biomedical research experiences
new research grants made possible by previous INBRE support
A 23-Year Effort to Build Up Maine’s Biomedical Muscle
INBRE stands for IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence. The program was enacted by Congress in the 1990s as part of a larger effort, called the Institutional Development Award (IDeA).
Its overarching goal is to enhance public health by increasing research capacity in 23 states (and Puerto Rico) that historically had received less funding from the NIH and other federal funders.
To ensure more geographic, economic and social diversity in the nation’s research enterprise, the INBRE helps small, mostly rural states, like Maine develop a better foundation for success.
The INBRE program focuses on strategic efforts to build up some prerequisites:
1. Developing a collaborative statewide research network and enhanced research infrastructure
2. Supporting faculty research and research mentoring
3. Providing participatory research opportunities for students, from undergraduates to doctoral candidates.
“The NIH staff and small-state supporters in Congress really sat down to figure out, How do we create a pipeline of students and bring them through the whole cradleto-grave research experience?’” says Jessica Molesworth, Executive Director of the non-profit EPSCoR/IDeA Foundation.
“They had great foresight and imagination and creativity.”
When the NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences opened the INBRE program in 2001, Patricia Hand, Ph.D., a microbiologist who had been working at the National Cancer Institute, was just starting a new job as MDI Bio Lab’s Administrative Director. Hand saw the scope of the INBRE grant solicitation, she says, and it took her breath away.
“It just seemed to be a such a wonderful opportunity for MDI Bio Lab, and for Maine,” she recalls.
Hand says that academic and research institutions in this large, sparsely populated state had not been particularly adept at collaboration, despite individual strengths in science education, training and research.
“So here was an opportunity to get people together at all levels: leadership, high-level administrators, finance people, researchers, faculty,” Hand says. “We felt like we were working together at something that was inherently good.”
They manifestly succeeded, as Hand and colleagues around the state stood up the new network. The Maine INBRE started with eight member institutions, growing to 14 by 2018 This year a new round of INBRE funding brings their number to 17.
Hallmarks of Success
Since 2001, thousands of students from Maine INBRE network institutions have cycled through short courses on MDI Bio Lab’s campus. Often led jointly by MDI Bio Lab faculty, staff and professors from the students’ home institution, the course titles give a sense of their range: “Cellular Regeneration in Zebrafish,” “Bridging Disciplines: The Impact of Environmental Chemicals on Physiology and Health, ” and “Biotechnology and Entrepreneurship ”
Hundreds more undergraduates have participated in paid fellowships that offer a banquet of biomedical research opportunities here and at network institutions
That’s a benefit that Geoff Ganter, Ph.D., a biology professor at the University of New England, says expands horizons for students in his department.
“It’s not just about having the maximum possible number of students involved,” he says. “It’s also promoting this idea that with the consortium, you don’t have to stay within your institution, and you can do some scientific matchmaking.”
More than 60 young faculty in Maine won pilot or other grants that helped them develop their research. That supported the hiring of students and technical staff, and the production of data needed to publish research, which in turn improved their chances of winning larger grants from NIH and other funders.
The NIH’s investment of $87 million in the Maine INBRE has provided a platform for awards of $110 million more in other research grants. Faculty and students supported by the Maine INBRE authored or co-authored more than 700 scientific articles, most of them in peer-reviewed journals. That’s evidence of not just an increase in capacity, but an increase in knowledge
Creating a New Sense of Possibility
Inherent to these measures of success is an ethical obligation: to open new windows on science for people whose circumstances otherwise might not have allowed it.
“I was the first member of my family to go to college,” says Colby College graduate Jennifer Honeycutt, Ph.D., now a faculty member at Bowdoin College. “I remember pretty early on wanting to kind of get out of my small New England town and do more.”
At Colby, Honeycutt landed a job in the laboratory of the woman who would become her scientific mentor, Melissa Glenn, Ph.D., whose own work on the biomolecular causes of depression and other mental health issues was supported by the INBRE.
“It was amazing to find somebody who wanted to see my success and was invested in the projects that I was excited about,” Honeycutt recalls. “She encouraged me to do the things that I didn’t think that I could do.”
The Maine INBRE supported Honeycutt’s senior year thesis research and other work that helped her to co-author her first peerreviewed publication.
Her INBRE-fueled scientific journey continues today. In 2021 she won a three-year, $270,000 grant from the Maine INBRE, which is supporting her work to understand the biological relationships between early exposure to stress and disorders such as depression and anxiety.
Glenn said. “Dr. Honeycutt is an exceptional and highly visible role model and has been an unwavering champion to students under-represented in science.”
Honeycutt sees proactive mentorship as an integral part of doing science.
“The beauty of the INBRE approach is we’re not just saying ‘oh, how many students can we teach to pipette?” Honeycutt says. “What we’re asking is how can I actually build you up as a scientist, make you excited about the science and want to make science better? ”
For SMCC undergraduate Samuel Cousins, the Maine INBRE is offering clear handholds on the ladder to scientific success. After completing that winter course on regeneration in Planarian flat worms, he applied for a spot in MDI Bio Lab’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program.
He was accepted for the paid, 10-week residential INBRE program, and you can find him on campus now, hard at work and fully immersed in high-level biomedical research.
Southern Maine Community College Biotechnology Certificate, 2024
MDI Bio Lab
Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow, 2024
INBRE Maine Microscopy Participant
“I want to be one of those people who did something with their lives.”
Jennifer Honeycutt, Ph.D. Bowdoin College
Assistant Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience
MDI Bio Lab
Multiple INBRE awards
“My INBRE mentor encouraged me to do the things that I didn’t think that I could do.”
FAST FACTS: Maine INBRE
As part of its capacity-growing mission, the INBRE program carefully tracks a variety of metrics of success. The results speak for themselves.
colleges over the past five years.
“It was a critical, critical bit of money,” she says. When Honeycutt started up her new lab, her mentor, Melissa Glenn, praised her willingness to challenge scientific convention.
“This includes scientific dogma but also, importantly, what a scientist looks like,”
“We only get 100 years on this planet, at max. I want to be one of those people who did something with their lives, a person like my research leader here at the Lab, Dustin Updike who’ve just done incredible things and been super accomplished. That’s something I’d like to achieve.”
Samuel Cousins
ABOVE: MDI Bio Lab postdoc Corey Johnson, Ph.D., with Colby College computational biology major Lee Ferenc at an INBRE biotechnology course.
A Virtuous Cycle: Early INBRE Experience Inspires Careers
Growing up in a small town of the island nation of Sri Lanka in the 1990s, Nishad Jayasundara, Ph.D., was fascinated by the natural world, and curious about humanity’s influences on the environment’s health.
He was smart, too. Math and chemistry came easy to him. But he felt that the country’s educational priorities — and social expectations — tended to be narrowly focused on certain get-ahead careers: doctor, lawyer, engineer.
Jayasundara’s early aptitudes eventually led him to an unusual and environmentally forward-thinking institution in Bar Harbor, the College of the Atlantic.
In 2001, a COA professor pointed him to a course that would send him in a new direction — a two-week Spring Break primer in molecular biology, taught at a little research institute up the road, MDI Bio Lab.
The course was supported by what would become the Maine IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) program. Taught by David W. Towle, Ph.D., the introduction to bench science would reshape Jayasundara’s intellectual ambitions.
Towle set the students to work with a fairly new technology, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), to characterize specific DNA sequences in the genome of Homarus americanus: the American lobster.
Jayasundara struggled at first. Towle urged patience. “David said ‘it’s not for everybody, but you shouldn’t give up,’” Jayasundara recalls. “And then it finally worked.”
Towle commemorated the breakthrough by writing “PPO” on Jayasundara’s laboratory images: “Persistence Pays Off.”
“That was a pretty defining memory because we were ready to give up,” Jayasundara says. “The great thing was that David was trying to do real work, not just a canned lab experiment; he was actually teaching us how to think, and troubleshoot, and how to go through all the steps towards identifying a gene that you’re interested in.”
A Platform for People
Created by Congress, the Maine INBRE’s results can be found within the diverse students and faculty whose lives and careers it’s transformed.
Truly Franciose-Chilemmi
Hometown: South Portland
University of Maine, Farmington Junior, Secondary Education/Life Sciences
MDI Bio Lab
INBRE Summer Fellow
That’s a hallmark of the INBRE philosophy — to get young learners into the lab to work on original scientific questions. Jayasundara was hooked. And so were his companions — all of them learning just how compelling science can be, and most going on to scientific careers.
“All of them had David as their go-to person. He just inspired so many.”
Jayasundara spent that summer as an INBRE fellow at MDI Bio Lab.
After earning his Ph.D. at Stanford, he took a post at the University of Maine’s Graduate School of Biomedical Science and Engineering.
He kept the cycle going, mentoring young, Maine INBRE-supported researchers in his own lab.
“What INBRE did and hopefully will continue to do is enable trainees to get direct access, to do cutting-edge research, in a smaller, more intimate setting,” he says. “That’s why it makes a big difference.”
Jayasundara left Maine in 2019 for a position at Duke University, where he is the Juli Plant Grainger Assistant Professor of Global Environmental Health.
“It’s always been a goal of mine to do research during college so that I’ll be able to bring it into my own classroom when I start teaching.
This spring we were looking at gene functions in green-spotted pufferfish, and we had some students from Oxford Hills High School come in. So they took part in the same learning process, and my two worlds just collided. That’s exactly the kind of science engagement I want to bring into my classroom. It gave them a taste of college level laboratory work. It was a special opportunity for them and for me.”
Seth Ashby
Hometown: Hallowell
University of Maine, Orono Rising Senior, Microbiology
MDI Bio Lab
INBRE Microscopy Short Course Attendee
“We had a good upbringing, but there wasn’t enough money to be like, ‘Hey, let’s do a $4,000 extra course outside of my regular academics.’
While there are opportunities like it that you can find when you have enough financial support, it’s really out of reach for someone who is in my sort of situation. So this was just amazing that it gave me that opportunity… I have gotten a better mastery over understanding how my future projects are going to work, and how I can expand them and actually successfully use them. Now I am looking for what my next INBRE course will be.”
Joel Graber, Ph.D.
MDI Bio Lab Senior Staff Scientist
Co-Director, Maine INBRE Data Science Core
“We aim to improve skills, access, and collaborations in data science. Research and training in modern biology and biomedicine requires data science skills, knowledge and access to adequate computational power. A primary focus of the INBRE has always been to overcome the geographic separation of research and educational institutions in low-population density states. We’re not like Boston, where you can walk two blocks and you’ve passed two institutions already. So we have established a working group with contacts in each of the INBRE’s 17 institutions. It will be a clearinghouse for sharing knowledge and fostering communication and collaboration.”
ABOVE: Nishad Jayasundara, Ph.D., was one of the first undergraduate students to enroll in a Maine INBRE course, in 2001. It sparked an unexpected passion for biomedical research.
The Maine INBRE brings together young people, who may not have had a participatory research experience before, to work with world class biomedical researchers and educators from around the state.
21% of INBRE graduates pursue advanced degrees/ careers in Maine
90% of I NBRE graduates pursue advanced degrees or careers in scientific or medical fields
Building on Success: The Maine INBRE Expands its Reach
2,186
The Maine INBRE is moving into its fifth consecutive period of federal funding.
The National Institutes of Health recently notified MDI Bio Lab that the collaborative research and training network it leads, the Maine INBRE, will receive $19.4 million to continue its research-capacity building mission for five more years, while expanding its scope.
In its new iteration, the network will add institutions while aiming to reach a more diverse array of students.
Funded by the NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences, the Maine INBRE (IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence) previously included 14 institutions spanning the state’s geography, from the University of New England to the University of Maine at Fort Kent. The new award brings in three more: The University of Southern Maine, UMaine Augusta, and the MaineHealth Institute for Research.
“This will extend student research opportunities to a wider range of undergraduates and enlarge the pool of faculty available for mentoring those students,” says James A. Coffman, Ph.D., the MDI Bio Lab Associate Professor who has directed the Maine INBRE since 2016.
“We want to infect the undergrads with the research bug,” he says. “With luck, they will stay in the state or come back after they get their Ph.D. and postdoctoral training. That’s key to strengthening the state’s biomedical research infrastructure.”
Coffman adds that the INBRE will continue to provide subawards to network under-graduate institutions as well as competitive research and pilot grants to support faculty-led projects. It will also provide new resources to help researchers at network institutions use the latest date science tools, and work to facilitate resource-sharing and collaboration across the expanded network.
MDI Bio Lab’s Andrea Tilden, Ph.D., will direct the student research program. She forecasts increased emphasis on professional career development.
“We’re actively preparing students for the science workforce, in addition to training them in basic science research,” Tilden says. That means more directed work to facilitate mentor-mentee relationships, and the creation of an INBRE Career Network.
Jim Coffman, Ph.D., (immediately above) has directed the Maine INBRE since 2016 and will take it into its next phase.
users of the Maine INBRE’s data science and research training centers (2019–2023)
Doug Currie, Ph.D.
University of Southern Maine
Associate Professor of Biology
“Joining the INBRE means we will be able to offer a real research experience to a lot more students, which will translate into a lot more students being more employable when they leave USM ”
Andrea Tilden, Ph.D.
MDI Bio Lab
Director of Education
Maine INBRE Student Research Programming Director
“The heart of it is how do we get people excited about research who might not otherwise have access.”
“It means developing LinkedIn skills, resume-building, presentation skills, and the formation of a stronger alumni network,” Tilden says. “We will be deliberate about communicating with the students as they make their way through their careers. We’ll also look beyond the traditional biomedical research path.”
The Maine INBRE also aims to reach more people who may not have seen biomedical science as a field that was open to them. Serving underrepresented communities has always been inherent to the INBRE’s work, nationally and in Maine. But now, Tilden says, it will be a more explicit and articulated goal, with outreach coordinated by MDI Bio Lab’s Jane Disney, Ph.D.
“There are many more immigrants in Maine than when we started,” says Tilden. “That is a talent pool that we hope we can tap into and provide opportunities for.”
At the University of Southern Maine (one of the new network members), Associate Professor of Biology Doug Currie, Ph.D., says the university will invest part of its first allotment from the INBRE grant in a state-of-the-art DNA sampling system.
The funding will also support undergraduate research experiences in USM labs.
“Joining the INBRE means we will be able to offer a real research experience to a lot more students, which will translate into a lot more students being more employable when they leave USM,” Currie says.
“Our student cohort includes many who may not have even thought of science as their first choice when they come to college, and then they discover it,” he adds. “One of the things that can really cement their love for the field is actually getting in a lab, in a team environment with other students. That can make an absolutely life-changing difference to what their career might be going forward.”
Maine INBRE student research program director Tilden agrees.
“The heart of it is how do we get people excited about research who might not otherwise have access,” she says. “Maine is a very big state. The INBRE brings us together.”
A Growing Network
The new Maine INBRE award adds three institutions to the network: MaineHealth Institute for Research, the University of Maine at Augusta and the University of Southern Maine.
• Provides research support to help young biomedical science faculty compete for federal grants.
• Modernizes scientific infrastructure through investments in shared, state-of-the-art equipment.
• Provides participatory biomedical research experiences for Maine students. KEY
undergraduate
FAST FACTS: Maine INBRE
The stats bear it out: the Maine INBRE doesn’t just increase research capacity, it increases knowledge
Source:
University of Maine Fort Kent
THE MAINE INBRE
University of Maine
Colby College University of Maine Honors College
University of Maine Farmington
University of Maine Augusta
Bates College Bowdoin College
University of Southern Maine MaineHealth Institute for Research (MHIR)
University of New England Southern Maine Community College
University of Maine Presque Isle The Jackson Laboratory
University of Maine Machias
College of the Atlantic
A Platform for People
The Maine INBRE’s mission makes a meaningful difference in the lives and careers of a wide variety of scientific researchers.
Sofie Trafton
Hometown: York
University of Maine Honors College
Graduating Senior
MDI Bio Lab
INBRE Summer Fellow
“For a lot of people, especially from Maine where you’re just not exposed to a lot, you don’t realize that graduate research is a thing and that there’s that kind of option. I met a professor in my first INBRE course at MDI Bio Lab who showed me that… Later I received a thesis fellowship award from the INBRE, which provided funding as a scholarship, and then also, for my research, which was awesome. That money allowed me a little more flexibility with the time I could spend on research.”
Tim Breton, Ph.D.
University of Maine, Farmington
Associate Professor of Biology
MDI Bio Lab
INBRE Research Faculty Training Award
“One day MDI Bio Lab’s Dustin Updike and Frederic Bonnet told me they were replacing their confocal microscope with a new one and would I want the old one? I said, ‘Heck, yeah, I want a confocal microscope.’ This is very advanced infrastructure for a small school like UMF. I hopped in a van and drove down to MDI Bio Lab and started picking up microscope parts. Then as part of a National Science Foundation grant I included using that microscope for an advanced technique that’d never been done on our campus. And we won that $500,000 grant. You can see how there’s multiple aspects that INBRE touches in terms of helping a small institution grow to meet new challenges.”
Doug Sawyer, Ph.D.
MaineHealth Institute for Research Interim Vice President for Research
“Maine has a lot of wonderful advantages for people that are trying to do investigative research, and one of them is it doesn’t have the competitive, or sometimes even hostile, environment that comes with a denser population of research institutions. Across the Maine
INBRE it’s the exact opposite effect; we know we’re all better off working with our colleagues outside the institution than without them.
I think we all recognize the value that we create by being collaborative and together, and the INBRE is the glue, the connective tissue for that.”
Juyoung Shim, Ph.D.
University of Maine, Augusta
Assistant Professor of Biology
MDI Bio Lab
Visiting Scientist
“In 2004 I was a student at Bates College when I first stepped into MDI Bio Lab for a week-long INBRE course. We worked to identify two genes in the lobster genome. I just had a great time. I was pre-med, and I was sure that I wanted to go to medical school, preparing for the MCAT... But that very new laboratory experience got me hooked to the research. So later in senior year, I turned my career goal to becoming a researcher. I’ve been involved with INBRE in many ways since then — and today I take on many young INBREsupported students as mentees.”
Frederic Bonnet, Ph.D.
MDI Bio Lab Director, MDI Bio Lab Light Microscopy Facility
Maine INBRE Collaborative Research Resources Manager
“We want to increase collaboration through better communication. My first goal is to make sure that all members in the INBRE network are aware of the scientific technology that each one has that can be used by the others: microscopy, advanced data genomics. We started that last year with MDI Bio Lab’s Light Microscopy Facility, getting the word out, creating a website with information, usage protocols and contact information. So we’ll have a database with all that information in one place that everyone can access. And it should really help students and faculty all around Maine to think more creatively about the scientific possibilities.”
MDI Bio Lab
Associate Professor of Environmental Health Maine INBRE Outreach Coordinator
“I understand what it means for these students to have these opportunities. I’ve seen students who are reticent or lacking in confidence, and those are the ones we want to get to participate. Part of my job is to visit their home campuses and amplify the encouragement they are getting there. And the partners can be amazing. I had one girl who got really excited about the idea of an INBRE course called “Bridging Disciplines.” But she looked over at her faculty mentor and said, ‘I don’t know how I would get there. I don’t have a car.’ And her mentor looked at her and said, ‘Then I will drive you.’”
Jane Disney, Ph.D.
Lab Notes
Community news about the developments and scientists that are shaping the future of the MDI Bio Lab.
For the latest news, visit mdibl.org/news
REMEMBERING
John N. Forrest, Jr., M.D.
(1938
– 2024)
The MDI Bio Lab community fondly remembers Dr. John N. Forrest, Jr., M.D., a long-time friend, colleague and leader. Introduced to the Lab by Yale colleague Dr. Franklin Epstein in 1970, Dr. Forrest spent 46 years visiting Salisbury Cove, including serving as the Lab’s director for a decade. Under Dr. Forrest’s 1998 – 2009 leadership, the Lab secured new state and federal funding, building the framework for its transformation into the year-round research institution it’s become.
Much of his research at the Lab focused on what was then its signature model for comparative biology, the dogfish shark, with an emphasis on hormonal signaling and potassium and chloride channels related to its salt gland — work that advanced the understanding of human disease, especially in the field of nephrology.
Learn more at mdibl.org/johnforrest
Lawmakers Support Expansion of MDI Bioscience
U.S Senator Susan Collins and Maine’s congressional delegation secured a $1.6 million federal award that will support the expansion of MDI Bioscience, a state-of-the-art drug development initiative at the Lab. The enterprise relies on faculty expertise with an array of exceptional models for human health, such as African turquoise killifish, zebrafish and lab-grown organ tissues called “organoids,” to engineer new technologies and therapies. The goal is to use high-volume systems to prospect for and evaluate novel molecules and compounds that hold medical potential early in the drug-discovery process, before costlier investments are made in mammal or human trials. The new funds will support the renovation of the historic Neal Laboratory and other facilities to house MDI Bioscience’s equipment and staff.
Learn more at mdibl.org/biosciencefunding
Research Finds Relationships of Inflammation, Blood-Brain Barrier and Neurodegeneration
MDI Bio Lab’s Halyna Shcherbata is lead author of new research that describes a novel role a gene that’s shared by fruit flies and humans plays in the maintenance of a healthy blood-brain barrier. The findings, published in eLife, also shed light on the role that inflammation may play in damaging the barrier and the development of some neurodegenerative diseases that are associated with aging. Shcherbata says the work indicates new avenues of exploration for anti-inflammatory therapies to address age-related neurodegeneration.
Murawala Lab Discovers a New Stem Cell
MDI Bio Lab ’s Prayag Murawala Ph.D., and coauthors signaled the discovery of a novel type of stem cell that drives a unique kind of tissue regeneration.
The finding, Murawala says, has “striking” implications for the fast-growing field of regenerative medicine, which aims to restore human health by regenerating or reengineering damaged cells, tissues and organs. “Most regenerative activities we know depend on biological processes that mirror the way an embryo initially develops,” he says. “But we show that in this case something quite different is going on.”
The discovery stems from long-term explorations by Murawala of a remarkable salamander called the axolotl, which has extraordinary abilities to regenerate tissue, limbs and organs. Murawala is a global innovator in the development of the axolotl as a model for human health.
Learn more at mdibl.org/newstemcell
Laboratory Investigator Awarded $2 million to Continue His Path of Discovery
Dustin Updike, Ph.D., was awarded a $2 million “Maximizing Investigators Research Award” from the National Institutes of Health, to support the next phase of his groundbreaking research on a group of proteins called “germ granules.” These mysterious protein assemblies are found inside the reproductive cells that pass genetic information from parent to offspring. The cells that make up the germline, as it’s called, carry the same DNA as other cells in our bodies, yet only the germline can perpetuate the genetic code.
Updike is exploring how the granules affect the programing and reprograming of cells to sustain development, fertility and the regenerative capacities needed for healing, as well as how their functions may be disrupted and contribute to diseases such as melanoma and cancer.
Learn more at mdibl.org/updikeaward
Scientists Trace PFAS Connection Between Schools and Residential Drinking Water
Scientists at MDI Bio Lab are charting an apparent connection between rural Maine schools and PFAS contamination in nearby residential well-water supplies. And they are expanding testing of residents’ drinking water near area schools where high levels of the so-called “forever chemicals” were previously identified.
The schools have ensured safe water supplies for students and staff, but the research demonstrates that more outreach, investigation and protective action may be needed in communities around 56 Maine schools where state data show PFAS levels above new federal limits for various types of PFAS.
“We identified concerning levels of PFAS at several residences that may have come from nearby schools here in Hancock County,” said Jane Disney, Ph.D. who directs the Community Environmental Health Laboratory at MDI Bio Lab. “We hypothesize that contaminants at the MDI High School, for instance, originated with floor waxes and cleaning products that led to more widespread contamination of local drinking water.” Learn more at mdibl.org/tracingpfas
LEFT TO RIGHT: Prayag Murawala, Ph.D., is on the leading edge of stem cell and regeneration research; the Laboratory’s Dustin Updike, Ph.D., received a substantial new grant for his groundbreaking inquiries.
Securing a Family Legacy
Ensuring the Future of a Beloved Science Gathering
MDI Bio Lab’s long-running “Chalk Talk” seminars embody its spirit, an informal convening by a deeply inquisitive community sharing research, challenging conventional thinking and… just talking science.
The original format persists: held outdoors, no notes, no technology but chalkboard and chalk. Visiting scientists and laboratory faculty present to a lunchtime crowd, answering questions on the fly. Undergraduates and senior scientists alike freely participate in the non-hierarchical forums.
They will continue in perpetuity, thanks to the generosity of Kenneth and Jeffrey Schultz. The siblings have set up an endowed fund to honor their parents, Stanley and Harriet.
Stanley G. Schultz, M.D., and his family spent their summers here during the late 1970s and early 1980s. He worked on the biomechanics of membrane transport — how substances are moved in and out of our cells.
“My dad saw these seminars as a way to encourage the highest levels of science,” Kenneth Schultz says. “The kinds of things the Lab is doing have evolved over time as the science has evolved, but the basic commitment and those basic values is what he would care about.”
The program will remain the same — a casual gathering for MDI Bio Lab’s entire community to come together and find out what’s going on inside the laboratories (and the scientists’ heads) — now with a name that honors one of its founders, The Stanley G. Schultz Seminar Series.
By endowing this fund in their parents’ name, the Schultz’s philanthropic support, spurred by a love of place, culture, and science, will ensure that future generations experience these special moments, too.
We aim to improve human health by discovering novel mechanisms of tissue repair, aging and regeneration, translating our discoveries for the benefit of medicine and society and developing the next generation of scientific leaders.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Alan W. Kornberg, Esq., Chairman Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
Edward J. Benz Jr., M.D., Vice Chairman Dana Farber Cancer Institute
Thomas A. Boyd, Ph.D., Treasurer
Anthology BioDevelopment LLC
Janis L. Coates, Ph.D., Secretary Island Readers and Writers
Hermann Haller, M.D., ex officio
MDI Biological Laboratory, President
James L. Boyer, M.D., Honorary Trustee Yale University
Phoebe C. Boyer
Children’s Aid
Terence C. Boylan The River Press
Ruth Cserr
John A. Hays
Christie’s
“My dad saw these seminars as a way to encourage the highest levels of science.”
– KENNETH SCHULTZ
To learn more about how you can ensure your legacy at MDI Bio Lab, please contact Emily Burke, Director of Philanthropy, at eburke@mdibl.org or 207-288-3147.
Anna U. Maynard
Alan B. Miller, Esq.
I. Wistar Morris III
Elizabeth Myers, Ph.D.
Margaret Myers, M.D.
Dennis L. Shubert, M.D., Ph.D.
Christopher P. Sighinolfi
Bruce A. Stanton, Ph.D.
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Daphne W. Trotter, Esq.
McDermott Will & Emery LLP
Robert Taft Whitman
Published by the Office of Development and Public Affairs
Writing, Editing + Research Jeri Bowers, VP of External Affairs and Chief of Staff; Fred Bever; Anna Farrell
Art Amanda Lilleston, M.A.
Design Cushman Creative
Photography Kevin Bennett
MDI Biological Laboratory PO Box 35, Salisbury Cove, ME 04672
Website: mdibl.org
Email: breakingthrough@mdibl.org
Making a Career at MDI Bio Lab
MDI Bio Lab this spring hired Emily Spaulding, Ph.D., to start a new research group on campus after four years as an award-winning postdoc here.
A Maine native, Spaulding is exploring how the normal organization of nerve cells can be disrupted and new approaches to the prevention and repair of neurodegenerative decline.
“MDI Bio Lab is a special place with state-of-the-art resources, a remarkable history and an incredibly supportive scientific community,” Spaulding says. “My kids are in school here, I love Maine. I can live the life that I want here, and still do amazing research.”
Your generous support of our research program provides the resources needed to ensure the success of early career faculty like Dr. Spaulding. Make your gift today at mdibl.org/donate
