The W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center

The W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center (1971-1995) was a non-profit research and education center on 10 Old Barn Road in Lake Placid, New York. The Center was established by a gift of 34 acres of land and $3 million dollars to the Tissue Culture Association from the W. Alton Jones Foundation through efforts of Nettie Marie Jones, widow of W. Alton Jones who was former chairman of the Board of Cities Service Company (see Citgo). The original tax-free gift was accompanied by the institutional charter that use of the facility would be restricted to non-profit activities related to research and education on the biology of cells.

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Cell Culture Research and Education Center 1971-1982

The Cell Center was largely the vision of cell culture pioneer Dr. George Otto Gey, director of the Finney-Howell Cancer Research Laboratory at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, a founder and first President of The Tissue Culture Association. A highlight of the physical facility was the George and Margaret Gey Library. The objective was to provide a center in the peaceful setting of the Adirondack Mountains where experts in the fields of genetics, immunology, virology, insect physiology and other invertebrates unified by common interest in the art and science of culturing cells outside the body could come together, pool their ideas and techniques, and convey them to others.

In the period 1971 to 1980, the Cell Center consisted of research groups oriented around the theme of cell and tissue culture, provided specialty 1 to 3 week courses and hosted international meetings on the topic. The first Director was Dr. Donald Merchant followed by Dr. Paul Chapple.

In 1979, as the single driving force, Nettie Marie Jones, behind the W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center based on pure philantropic motives was in poor health and nearing age 100, Patricia Jones Edgerton, daughter of Nettie M. and W. Alton Jones, and long time family associate William Battle, ambassador to Australia under the Kennedy administration, emerged to take charge of the W. Alton Jones Foundation and established a corporate body called the W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center, Inc. As Executive Board members Edgerton and Battle and their associates maintained concurrent control of boards of the not-for-profit W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center, Inc., the subsequent Adirondack Biomedical Institute, Inc. and the for-profit Upstate Biotechnology, Inc. Under their control, the Tissue Culture Association (now the Society for In Vitro Biology) under President Keith Porter was forced to relinquish sole ownership and the deed of the Lake Placid property and facility to the newly established W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center, Inc. in the early 1980's. The deed was relinquished along with the original charter requiring a non-profit use of the facility for research and teaching. Concurrent with a grant of $50,000 from the Adirondack Biomedical Institute, Inc. (Director, Dr. James Stevens) to the SIVB, the SIVB agreed retroactively that they would not enforce the "non-profit use only" stipulation of the original charter along with the original transfer by deed of the property.

The Sato Program 1983-1993

In 1982 the W. Alton Jones Foundation made a commitment to the W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center, Inc. of $17.5 million dollars to support the recruitment and program of Dr. Gordon H. Sato as Director. Dr. Sato’s mission was to build a financially independent world-class basic research and teaching institute in the Adirondacks generally oriented around the applications of cell culture technologies to broad problems in human health and disease through translational biotechnology to industry and the clinic. In his own words he envisioned "a self-endowed Rockefeller University-type institution" in the middle of the Adirondack State Park, New York state's counterpart of New York City's Central Park.

In the period 1983-1993 the research staff of the Center increased by 10 fold. Sato purchased several local properties for staff and student housing. He established an international Ph.D. program in Chemical Biology with nearby Clarkson University, Potsdam (village), New York and a joint program with the University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont. He established the annual W. Alton Jones International Symposium in Cellular Endocrinology centered on honoring movers and shakers in the field. During his administration the Center acquired program project grants from the National Cancer Institute and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Through Sato’s efforts, the Cell Center acquired worldwide recognition through contributions of its researchers to basic research and biotechnological applications. Its former researchers and students hold leadership positions in academics and biotechnology worldwide. During this period the Lake Placid center became the headquarters of The Manzanar Project ^[1], a global action project aimed at attacking the planet's most critical problems as poverty, hunger, environmental pollution, and global warming through low tech biotechnological methods in salt water deserts that can be transferred to the indigenous inhabitants

To insure financial independence, a permanent endowment for the research center, "to give scientists security and remove any temptation they may have felt to to modify their research because of monetary support,"^[2] Sato founded Upstate Biotechnology, Inc. (UBI) to be solely owned by the W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center, Inc. Startup for UBI was financed by loans from the W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center, Inc. to insure that ownership and proceeds of UBI flowed solely into support and long term endowment of the Cell Center without interference by private interests. As profitability of UBI increased, private interests and overlapping members of the Boards of both the W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center, Inc. and the W. Alton Jones Foundation and their associates diverted the UBI mission away from the goal of providing permanent support and endowment of the Cell Center in the Adirondacks. This precipitated the resignation of Dr. Sato as Director.

Diversion of Upstate Biotechnology, Inc. and Dissolution

In 1996 venture capitalist Sheridan Snyder became involved with UBI, later called Upstate USA, Inc., Upstate Group or simply Upstate. In 2004 Upstate was sold to Serologicals, Inc. for $204 million ^[3]. Upstate and Serologicals, Inc. are now a division of Millipore Corporation ^[4].

After Sato’s resignation and dissolution of his program, the not-for-profit W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center, Inc. was dissolved in 1996 and the assets transferred to another newly incorporated non-for-profit entity, the Adirondack Biomedical Research Institute (ABRI), Inc. In 1998 the latter institute ceased operations as a non-profit research entity and announced the facility would become an "incubator facility" for biotechnology companies in the Adirondacks with Upstate, Inc. and Argonex (a Snyder startup) as lead companies.^[5] In 2000, the ABRI corporation was dissolved and the facilities purchased by for-profit Upstate, Inc. of which Argonex was a major shareholder for $1 million.^[6]. The Lake Placid site was offered for sale on the Lake Placid real estate market by Millipore Corporation for $5.9 million and has reportedly sold in 2007 to a local partnership of Lake Placid real estate and business investors for about $3 million.^[6]

In 2000 the Ivy Foundation chaired by William C. Battle was established with a reported endowment of $7 million from funds from the closure of the Adirondack Biomedical Research Foundation, Inc. (formerly the W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center, Inc.) ^[7] that included Upstate Biotechnology, Inc. ^[8]. Subsequent to the sale of the Upstate Group in 2005 the Ivy Foundation listing Board of Directors as William C. Battle, Arthur Garson, Jr., William Black, Sheridan G. Snyder, Patricia J. Edgerton, Aaron Shatkin and Dr. Robert W. Battle made a gift of $45 million to the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, the largest single gift in the history of the University ^[9].

In 2001, the Charlottesville, Virginia-based 56-year-old W. Alton Jones Foundation suddenly dissolved ^[10]. The $400 million endowment was split into three separate Foundations, the Blue Moon Fund ^[11] run by Patricia Jones Edgerton (daughter of W. Alton Jones) and her daughter Diane Edgerton Miller, the Oak Hill Foundation run by son William Edgerton, and the Edgerton Foundation run by son Brad Edgerton ^[12].

References

1. ^ The Manzanar Project-Low Tech Solutions to Hunger and Povery
2. ^ 1995 letter to Dr. James Stevens, Director of the Adirondack Biomedical Institute
3. ^ Serologicals buys Upstate Atlanta Business Chronicle Oct. 15 2004
4. ^ Corporate website
5. ^ 1998 News Release, ABRI
6. ^ ^{a b} Lake Placid and Town of North Elba Realtor Records
7. ^ University of Virginia News, Oct. 6 2000
8. ^ University of Virginia News May 19 2003
9. ^ University of Virginia News Dec. 12 2005
10. ^ Lost foundation: Whatever happened to W. Alton Jones? The Hook Mar 28 2002
11. ^ Blue Moon Fund
12. ^ Green offshoots: W. Alton Jones Foundation sprouts Oak Hill Fund The Hook Oct. 17 2002