Connecticut lawmakers passed a $291 million plan to create a state-of-the-art research institute for personalized medicine and systems genomics to be called The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine. The center, to be erected near the University of Connecticut Health Center campus in Farmington, represents an expansion for the Jackson Laboratory family, which already houses a preeminent mouse genetics facility in Maine and a preclinical testing center in California. Jackson will contribute $809 million towards the project, bringing the total investment to $1.1 billion. The site will occupy 17 acres and is expected to employ 320 people in its first decade—including 30 principal investigators—and more than double its staff in 15 to 20 years. In addition to basic research, the institute plans to commercialize its findings in the area of diagnostics and therapeutics for personalized patient genomics. According to Robert Braun, the associate director of Jackson, having a physical presence on a medical school campus and direct access to a healthcare system will greatly enhance his organization. What's more, he said, personalized medicine will benefit enormously from Jackson's expertise in mouse genetics, as interpreting the huge and growing mass of human genomic data will require functional studies in model systems. The state's investment is part of an initiative known as Bioscience Connecticut, which seeks to bolster biomedical industry in the region.