[2] It employs over 3,000 employees in Bar Harbor, Maine; Sacramento, California; Farmington, Connecticut; Shanghai, China; and Yokohama, Japan.

[1] The stated mission of The Jackson Laboratory is "to discover the genetic basis for preventing, treating and curing human diseases, and to enable research and education for the global biomedical community.

[1] Additionally, JAX is the home of the Mouse Genome Informatics database, and an international hub for scientific courses, conferences, training and education.

There are more than 60 faculty members maintaining independent labs across these campuses, who perform research in six primary areas:[12] The Jackson Laboratory was founded by Clarence Cook Little, a former University of Maine and University of Michigan president, in 1929 in Bar Harbor, Maine under the name Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Laboratory with the purpose of discovering the causes of cancer and other diseases through research on mammals.

[16][17] The demand for mice generated at The Jackson Lab increased in 1937 when the Surgeon General supported a grant from National Cancer Institute to the lab that made mice produced there a de facto industry standard due to federal standardization requirements because it was the only large-scale mouse provider before World War II.

Four workers of the Colwell Construction Company who were installing fiberglass wallboard in the room where the fire broke out were injured, one with burns over 15 percent of his body.

[28] In October 2021, Jackson Lab bought Japan-based research animal business from Charles River Laboratories International for US$63 million.