Jackson Lab, Maine

The Jackson Laboratory's campus in Bar Harbor is one of the premier genetics labs in the nation, famous for its laboratory mouse research and breeding operations.  The lab has been called the largest single producer of mice in the world, with around a million individual animals, and has more than 8,000 strains of genetically defined mice in its inventory. Its primary lab site, located incongruously on Mount Desert Island in Maine, was established in 1929, and employs more than 1,500 people (including 200 with PhD’s), making it among the largest employers in the state. The campus, just south of Bar Harbor, has 68 buildings. The lab also has a large warehouse and logistics center several miles north, on Highway 1 in Ellsworth, more convenient for big rigs. It also has operations in Sacramento, California, and Farmington, Connecticut. A fire in its Morrell Park Mouse Production Facility at the lab in Bar Harbor in 1989 killed 300,000 mice, around half its stock, and led to a lab mice supply shortage for researchers around the world.