The interactions among hundreds of genes, along with external factors such as diet and exercise, determine our health. The Jackson Laboratory's expertise in systems genetics and traditional research methods gives us a distinctive edge in the quest to understand disease. It also brings us closer to the day when medicine is targeted to an individual’s unique genetic composition.

Our research helped explain why some patients did not respond as expected to Gleevec, an effective drug for some forms of leukemia. It also identified an additional drug that can be used with Gleevec and that promises to help these patients.

Mining vast databases with powerful statistical tools, our geneticists, mathematicians, physicists and computer scientists are generating new insights into how genetics determines health and disease. The Laboratory also houses and maintains the Mouse Genome Informatics database, the world’s most comprehensive collection of mouse genetic data.

Jackson’s systems genetics group is mapping the dozens of genetic interactions that give rise to type 1 diabetes. Others are deciphering the gene network that controls levels of HDL, the "good" cholesterol, in our blood. And researchers in the Jackson Aging Center are untangling the web of genetic and environmental factors that make us grow old.

What does "bench to bedside" mean? Learn more