Research Organizations Plan Genomics Centers In Connecticut, New York City

Several major research organizations are joining forces to establish two institutions that will explore the genetic underpinnings of human disease. The centers, in Connecticut and New York City, both aim to use personal genetic information to advance drug development and create opportunities for company spin-offs while improving health care.

The Connecticut project, the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, will link Jackson Laboratory, a Maine-based nonprofit, with the University of Connecticut Health Center and Yale University. It will be located at UConn’s campus in Far­mington. Funding over the next 10 years will include $291 million from the state and more than $800 million from Jackson Laboratory, the project’s backers say.

The center will open new R&D opportunities in a state where drug firm Pfizer is cutting more than 1,000 jobs (C&EN, Feb. 7, page 5). The 173,500-sq-ft lab is expected to be completed in 2014 and ultimately house more than 660 people.

The second project, the New York Genome Center, will link 11 academic medical centers and research universities including Rockefeller University, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory at a yet-to-be-disclosed location in New York City. Gene-sequencing instrument firm Illumina and drugmaker Roche will be collaborators.

About $125 million in private and public money will pay for the 125,000-sq-ft facility, which is set to open next year. Executive Director Nancy Kelley says the center “will allow us to support the world’s premier research and medical institutions, as well as their diagnostic and pharmaceutical partners.”