Michaelle Chojnacki

Mission: To safeguard human health and combat 21st century global health crises, from the rise of drug-resistant TB to emerging pandemic viruses, by spearheading urgent and focused biomedical research within regional and global translational science partnerships. Overview: Trudeau Institute is a nonprofit biomedical research enterprise dedicated to immunology and infectious disease research, focusing on deadly pathogens including tuberculosis, SARS-CoV-2, Zika, influenza, and tick-borne Powassan virus. Trudeau’s roots are traced to 1884, when Edward Livingston Trudeau launched the first American laboratory solely dedicated to tuberculosis research. The core of our strategy, the Trudeau Research Network (TRN), is expanding the reach of our labs and accelerating our progress discovering and optimizing innovative treatment options against infectious diseases. Partners include Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Texas Biomedical Research Institute, global biopharmaceutical companies, and large non-profit global health organizations. Education initiatives include the 15-credit immersive, semester-long Clarkson Trudeau Biomedical Scholars project and the Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP). In 2020, Trudeau launched a critical real-time community pandemic response, manufacturing scarce COVID testing fluid for the Adirondack Health Medical Center and sterilizing their N-95 facemasks. With the hospital, Trudeau established a regional COVID Testing Lab for the underserved North Country with the capacity of 1,000 tests daily and equipment essential for Trudeau’s work developing tests for the next outbreak.