MaineHealth Institute for Research Community

 This information of all of our IDeA programs in Maine was collated by our Maine INBRE (Jim Coffman and Kris Reaman), and presented at the annual 2024 EPSCoR/IDeA Coalition and EPSCoR/IDeA Foundation Annual Meeting in February 2024.  IDeA in Maine . . . Maine is home to six COBRE programs, one CTR and an INBRE funded by the IDeA program. MaineHealth Institute for Research COBRE focus: Mesenchymal and Neural Regulation of Metabolic Networks. Funding: $24.7 million from 2017 to 2028. Contact: Lucy Liaw, Ph.D. • lucy.liaw@mainehealth.org This COBRE supports four junior investigator projects and three scientific core facilities geared towards developing re- search excellence in characterizing signaling pathways integrating bone, adipose tissue and the brain in metabolic disease. COBRE focus: Acute Care Research and Rural Disparities . Funding: $13.6 million from 2021 to 2026. Contact: Douglas Sawyer M.D. • douglas.sawyer@mainehealth.org This COBRE is creating a statewide research and care

  Quarter-million genomes analyzed in NIH project could be ‘hugely important’ for identifying disease risks All of Us finds many millions of new DNA variants as it moves toward 1 million participants from diverse backgrounds by Jocelyn Kaiser A giant research database with genetic and health data of people across the United States has hit its stride. Today, the All of Us study published an analysis of genomes and linked health information from nearly 250,000 participants whose diversity may be greater than that in any comparable biobank widely available for research. The National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded effort, which plans to quadruple that genome number ultimately, has already found hundreds of millions of never-reported genetic variants that have the potential to reveal new links between genes, health, and disease. “This is a hugely important paper because of the diversity that’s there and the resources it’s going to provide for researchers,” says human geneticist Rick Kitt