SARANAC LAKE - The Trudeau Institute, the medical research facility that is the heir of this village's tuberculosis sanatorium, excitedly announced Thursday night that it will receive about $8.3 million from the federal stimulus package, officially known as the American Investment and Recovery Act.

The institute has also been notified that another $7.7 million will be forthcoming to its researchers through the normal grant-making process of the National Institutes of Health. In total, that's an influx of about $16 million over the next two years.

The institute reported that in recent years, its scientists have been about twice as successful as the average applicant in gaining grants from the NIH. Trudeau scientists' grant proposals were competitively reviewed against requests from throughout the United States.

"We are very encouraged by this influx of new funding in support of our research efforts," Trudeau Institute President and Director David L. Woodland said in a prepared statement. "This is not only a wonderful shot in the arm to the research, but also a shot in the arm of the local economy.

"The ability to attract this amount of funding from the NIH, in such a competitive climate, points to the high caliber of our scientists," Woodland added. "These grants are earned on the basis of a rigorous peer-review system that only awards funds to the most promising research projects."

The increase in federal funding for the institute coincides with the arrival of three new research groups to Trudeau. Two of the laboratories are relocating from the University of Pennsylvania, the other from Harvard.

Woodland said the new teams "will fill openings created by recent retirements and will expand our scientific capacity. These are all highly-regarded scientists, who will complement our current research groups quite nicely and will augment the depth and breadth of our ongoing work.

"The level of competition involved in obtaining research scientists of this caliber is incredible, so I am delighted they have selected the Trudeau Institute over other institutions. Our ability to attract them to Saranac Lake points to the importance and relevance of our scientific contributions."

Trudeau also has several requests pending for New York state stimulus funds it hopes to obtain. If successful, the funds will be used for renovation and weatherization projects.

Trudeau Institute has almost completed a 10,000-square-foot addition that includes laboratory and support space - 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 the late state Sen. Ronald B. Stafford, who served on the Trudeau Institute's board of trustees for many years and was instrumental in securing state funds for the project.

The three new research groups heading to Saranac Lake will be led by the following scientific investigators:

Edward J. Pearce, Ph.D., was most recently professor of pathobiology in the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Trudeau reports that he is an internationally recognized expert in the immunology and molecular biology of schistosomiasis and has made major contributions to the field, which are also valuable to the search for new solutions to allergies and asthma, which share immunological features.

Elizabeth A. Leadbetter, Ph.D., was most recently at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Her research program is directed at understanding how the immune system recognizes and responds to the lipids that coat the outer surface of bacteria. Leadbetter is particularly interested in a specific population of white blood cells ("natural killer T cells") involved in the control of bacteria that cause debilitating infections like Lyme disease. Her long-term goal is to develop an entirely new class of lipid-based vaccines against these diseases.

Erika L. Pearce, Ph.D., comes to Trudeau from the department of microbiology in the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine. Her research team will focus on molecular mechanisms that regulate T cell responses and hopes to gain insight into new ways to manipulate the function, with a view to mitigating disease.