The Jackson Laboratory names new house counsel, Brian R. Leslie

Bar Harbor, Maine — The Jackson Laboratory has appointed Brian R. Leslie, an attorney specializing in intellectual property issues in both corporate and academic settings, as its new general counsel.

Leslie joins the nonprofit Laboratory after nine years as chief intellectual property counsel for a global Fortune 50 company, Archer Daniels Midland Company of Decatur, Ill.

Previously Leslie served as associate general counsel for the University of Pennsylvania and that university’s Health System in Philadelphia (1999-2003), where he was responsible for all intellectual property issues, and as associate intellectual property counsel for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. (1996-1999).

Jackson Executive Vice President and COO, Charles E. Hewett, Ph.D., notes that Leslie’s expertise in intellectual property and “his wisdom and incisiveness as general counsel” will be essential in the coming years. “The Laboratory is
advancing biomedical research and clinical practice in ways we couldn’t imagine five years ago,” he says, “and Brian’s legal savvy and IP experience will enable critical breakthroughs while minimizing our risk.”

Leslie, who will start working at the Laboratory on Jan. 7, says it was the Laboratory’s mission to improve human health that attracted him to the position. “I’m fascinated by the Laboratory’s work in advancing personalized medicine and genomics, and I’m looking forward to working towards such a beneficial goal,” he says.

Leslie holds a B.S. in chemistry from Allegheny College and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. He is a registered patent attorney and a member of the Pennsylvania and Illinois bars.

The Laboratory’s house counsel position had been held for 22 years by David Einhorn, who retired in October. Einhorn is best known for his work in minimizing restrictions for research institutions around the world to share mouse models of human disease.

The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution based in Bar Harbor, Maine, with a facility in Sacramento, Calif., and a new genomic medicine institute in Farmington, Conn. It employs a total staff of more than 1,400. Its mission is to discover precise genomic solutions for disease and empower the global biomedical community in the shared quest to improve human health.