Gov. Baldacci to Visit UMaine Friday for Biomedical Science Event

Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571

ORONO — Gov. John Baldacci will be at the University of Maine on Friday, Sept. 11 to attend the annual meeting of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS), a collaborative graduate education program involving higher education and biomedical research institutions statewide.

The governor is due to arrive at Stodder Hall at 1 p.m., to address the students, faculty members, administrators and researchers attending the meeting.  He will speak to the group, and he will spend some time reviewing the posters each of the students has created to describe biomedical research projects.  From approximately 1:50-2 p.m., he will join UMaine Prof. Carol Kim for a tour of UMaine’s zebrafish research facility in Hitchner Hall.

GSBS member institutions are the University of Maine, the Jackson Laboratory, Maine Medical Center Research Institution, Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine, Maine Institute for Human Genetics and Health, and the University of Southern Maine.

Baldacci was instrumental in establishing GSBS in 2006, with support from the Maine Legislature.  The program provides doctoral-level education in biomedical sciences, including genomics, biophysics, bioengineering and nanotechnology, molecular and cell biology, neuroscience, toxicology, and the molecular mechanisms of disease.  GSBS students are UMaine graduate students who will receive UMaine Ph.D.s upon completion of their programs.