Trudeau Institute

Campus of the Trudeau Institute from Lower Saranac Lake.

Saranac Laboratory, precursor to the Trudeau Institute. Presently the home of Historic Saranac Lake, a local nonprofit, historic preservation organization

The Trudeau Institute[1] is an independent, not-for-profit Biomedical Research Center, whose scientific mission is to make breakthrough discoveries that lead to improved human health. With an annual operating budget of over $16 million in research grant support, Trudeau scientists[2] work to discover the basic rules governing how the body’s natural defense system, immunity, attacks influenza, plague,tuberculosis, toxoplasmosis and tumors of the lung as well as how an overactive immune response, autoimmunity, results in asthma, arthritis and allergies.

Trudeau Institute was originally founded in 1884 as a tuberculosis sanitarium and then in 1964 as a research institute. Located in the northern New York Village of Saranac Lake[3], Trudeau is among the area’s largest employers and fosters a highly collaborative research environment where multiple investigative teams examine distinct facets of immune response to infectious disease, particularly those pathogens that infect via the lung and respiratory tract. The studies are done efficiently due to use of shared resources, shared expertise and shared information. The many kinds of answers obtained often synergize to allow new insight into basic mechanisms of immunity to respiratory pathogens.

The Institute is home to thirteen world-class research teams, who all study some aspect of infection and immunity, but across a variety of different pathogens. Their studies focus not only on immune responses to major infectious diseases, such as influenza[4] and tuberculosis[5], but also on the role of the immune system in cancer, [6], sepsis[7], and aging[8].

Each research team, comprised of a Principal Investigator, postdoctoral fellows[9] and highly trained technical staff, receive average annual grant support of just over $1 million, based largely upon success in earning highly competitive federal grants, principally from the National Institutes of Health[www.nih.gov/]. The Institute employes over 60 Ph.D.’s from 12 countries. While many universities and private research institutions have several groups dedicated to immunology or infectious disease research, having such a large interactive group devoted to studying immunity is unique and promotes rapid progress.

Using state-of-the-art experimental methodologies and mouse models, Trudeau researchers at the 25 acre campus utilize core facilities which include our Animal, Flow Cytometry, Molecular, Imaging & Microscopy cores as well as BSL2 and BSL3 containment laboratories. Because all the groups use each facility extensively, and because the groups often collaborate in their research, the cores are used efficiently and the many projects synergize nicely.

During the Fall of 2009, an additional 10,000 square feet of laboratory and support space will be commissioned. The new space will provide state-of-the-art facilities for the Institute’s research in tuberculosis, pandemic influenza and other infectious diseases. The new wing is named in honor of former state senator Ronald B. Stafford, who also served on the Trudeau Institute’s board of trustees.

External links

• Official site
• Trudeau Institute, 1884-2008
• Historic Saranac Lake - the Saranac Laboratory
• A contemporary description of the sanatarium