Jennifer Honeycutt, a professor and researcher at Bowdoin College, looks at the prefrontal cortex of a rat’s brain in her lab on Tuesday. The Maine IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) funded her undergraduate research, and her current research on how early adversity impacts brain development and mental health is funded through the program, too. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

It wasn’t until a work-study job in a lab at Colby College that Jennifer Honeycutt – the first in her family to go to college – began to see science as a way to ask and answer complex questions about the world.

Multiple degrees and research projects later, she has earned a Ph.D. and is now teaching psychology and neuroscience as a professor at Bowdoin College.

Honeycutt credits that initial time in the lab with Colby’s Melissa Glenn with shaping her career. Together, the women researched how stress during pregnancy can impact cognitive development and whether certain supplemental nutrients can help reverse negative impacts.

“It’s one thing to read about a theory or a hypothesis (and) another to step into a lab in your lab coat,” Honeycutt said. “I think it was fundamental in terms of getting excited about the science, seeing what I could physically, with my hands, accomplish in the lab.”

Now she’s trying to give that same experience to other students.

Honeycutt’s current research at Bowdoin – exploring how early adversity impacts brain development and mental health – is funded by the same federal grant that allowed her to work with Glenn.

On Tuesday, officials announced that program would be funded for another five years, after the National Institutes of Health awarded it $19.4 million.

Called the Maine IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE), the program is designed to bolster Maine’s biomedical research capacity, give more young Mainers hands-on scientific experience and help researchers in the state compete for funding against bigwigs like Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

MDI Bio Lab, based in Bar Harbor, is the founder and leader of the statewide network of 17 educational and research institutions, three of which – the MaineHealth Institute for Research, the University of Maine at Augusta and the University of Southern Maine – joined the consortium this year.

The network provides training, research experiences and financial support to help young Mainers play a bigger role in today’s biomedical revolution, the lab said, qualifying them for careers in a high-paying field that is making rapid advances in human health.

“In a state like Maine with a small population and a vast geography, it’s our willingness to work together that makes us competitive in the global biomedical world, that helps us to punch above our weight,” Hermann Haller, MDI Bio Lab’s president, said in a statement. “The Maine INBRE is our connective tissue, an extraordinarily collaborative network that is significantly raising the biomedical research and training capacity of the entire state.”

The program also funds research and mentorship to young faculty members to increase their competitiveness for independent NIH funding, and by improving the state’s research infrastructure with the latest technology and technical expertise, the lab said.

In 23 years, the program has helped give more than 2,800 undergraduates direct exposure to scientific research and improved the scientific infrastructure throughout the state.

“You don’t need to be in Silicon Valley, the Research Triangle or Boston to make a difference. Remarkable research is taking place right here in Maine,” U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in announcing the award Tuesday. “The Maine INBRE is helping to make it possible.”

FULL CIRCLE 

Maine is one of 23 states targeted by the federal program, which helps small and rural states that might not receive as much NIH funding build out their biomedical research capacity and “to ensure more geographic, economic and social diversity in the nation’s research enterprise,” MDI Bio Lab said in a statement.

With the program’s renewal, the lab aims to diversify its researcher pool, tapping into Maine’s immigrant community.

“Diversity is not only our mission, but diversity also makes our research special,” Haller said, adding that its Bar Harbor campus is more diverse than it ever has been, with students and researchers from all over the world.

That focus on diversity is one of the elements that Honeycutt, the Bowdoin researcher, loves most about the program.

As a first-generation college student and a queer woman in STEM, she is committed to creating space for voices that have historically been shut out of science.

“Having diversity, especially in the scientists that are running the experiments, provides so many different perspectives and a rich understanding of why we’re doing the work that we’re doing. Effectively, in order to really drive science, you need to have a lot of different voices in the lab that are going to push things forward,” she said.

Jennifer Honeycutt, a professor and researcher at Bowdoin College, in her lab on Tuesday. Her current research, funded by rhe Maine IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE), explores how early adversity impacts brain development and mental health. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

Honeycutt has worked with several students at Bowdoin, including two INBRE-funded fellows from Southern Maine Community College and the University of Maine at Fort Kent. Even having students from different institutions in the consortium can fuel better scientific research.

Their backgrounds, familiarity with the research and questions are all going to be different, providing fresh perspective as they approach an experiment.

Former students like Honeycutt becoming researchers who mentor other INBRE students is a full-circle moment and is one of the program’s greatest successes, Haller said.

“We fund research and then these researchers educate students in their labs and then they become future researchers in Maine and they help us establish biomedical excellence in the state,” he said.

With the new award, the program has invested $106 million in Maine and an additional $110 million in research grant funding. According to the lab, 90% of INBRE undergraduates pursued higher education and careers in health-related fields, though only 21% stayed in Maine. Over the last five years, the number of science majors at the participating schools increased by 65%.

Other network members include the University of Maine and The Jackson Laboratory, as well as undergraduate partner institutions The University of New England; Bates College; Bowdoin College; Colby College; College of the Atlantic; Southern Maine Community College; the University of Maine Honors College; and UMaine at Farmington, Fort Kent, Machias and Presque Isle.

A GROWING INDUSTRY 

While only 20% in-state retention isn’t the most encouraging metric, Haller said it’s not the program’s priority. However, as it continues, there are promising signs that number could improve.

“We are basically trying to solve half the problem, and this is to have the educated young people, talented young people in Maine so that when … biomedical, pharmaceutical companies come into the state, that they actually have the people that they can work with,” he said.

Some researchers at MDI Bio Lab have become patent-holders and one research team is planning to launch a small company soon, based off research findings.

“The research by itself is not only important for the education, but … we are part of changing the landscape of biomedical companies in Maine,” Haller said.

Maine’s biotech sector is growing rapidly.

According to the Bioscience Association of Maine’s 2022 state of the industry report – the most recent data available – life sciences jobs in the state grew by 42% over the previous five years. Comparatively, Maine’s total job growth over that period was 1%.

Maine’s life science job growth also outpaced the rest of New England between 2016 and 2021, according to the report. At the time, the industry supported just shy of 10,000 jobs across almost 500 companies.

“Maine is moving in the right direction in terms of building a research community that is going to be, and is already, pretty well-recognized,” Honeycutt said, and the investments from the INBRE program will help bolster that.

“This program has been a huge catalyst in terms of getting infrastructure here in Maine for research,” she said. “Some (students) come and maybe they don’t stay in Maine, but the infrastructure is still in Maine. Other researchers can benefit.”

Samuel Cousins, a student at Central Maine Community College, hopes to stay in Maine as he continues his education and career in biotechnology.

The 22-year-old Gorham resident is fascinated by all facets of the field, from the tiniest molecular studies to broader questions about ecology and humanity.

He has researched advanced techniques and technology but always assumed he wouldn’t be able to get hands-on experience with high-level research until after he graduated.

“Going to a community college, while it’s given me an incredible education, I don’t (have access to) the facilities I’d get to use here,” Cousins said.

But this summer at MDI Bio Lab, Cousins was able to try things he had previously only read about, like using the lab’s microscopy facility or genome editing technology, which he called “one of the most revolutionary things to happen in biology in the last 20 years.”

Cousins’ research over the 10-week fellowship focused on proteins that can program cells to sustain development, fertility and healing but can also play a role in diseases like cancer.

“Going into it, 10 weeks seems like a lot of time, like, ‘give me 10 weeks and I’ll cure cancer,’ but you quickly realize how that’s not the case,” he said.

Instead, “it gave me a really good in-depth understanding of a niche topic, which was a bit transformative for me,” Cousins said.