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Biotech in our region

It is probably hard to imagine for those outside, but this region, especially Saranac Lake and Lake Placid, has been home to biotech for many decades.

Currently in Saranac Lake we have Bionique Testing Laboratories, the Trudeau Institute, Ampersand Biosciences and Active Motif. There has been a recent push in Saranac Lake to attract this biotech business, with mixed success, but there has been an element here for many decades.

Our biotech roots can be traced back to Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau, who, like many before him, came to Saranac Lake in an attempt to cure his case of tuberculosis. His health did improve while in Saranac Lake, prompting him to buy a winter home here. Trudeau became fascinated by research that had shown that tuberculosis was caused by a bacterium, so he began to read the available literature and perform his own research. After an unfortunate accident in which his home laboratory was burned to the ground, a man named George Cooper offered to build Trudeau a new lab, and the Saranac Laboratory was born in 1894.

The Saranac Laboratory operated until 1964, when Trudeau Institute took its place. Trudeau Institute has stayed active in Saranac Lake to this day, despite threats of departure a few years ago. Trudeau Institute has largely become focused on the body’s immune system and how it is able to fend off disease.

Though Trudeau Institute has certainly been an integral part of biotech in our region, it is by no means the only one. The W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center in Lake Placid was another major entity that has driven biotech in our region. The cell center, which was started in 1971, focused on cell cultures and became a world-renowned institution. This cell center stayed in business into the 1990s, when it was dissolved and other biotech companies spun off from it, including Upstate Biotechnology. Eventually those spin-offs would also dissolve, and Upstate Biotechnology was purchased by a larger company, which sold off the Lake Placid property.

So for many years, Lake Placid and Saranac Lake were at the forefront of biotech, and we have recently seen Saranac Lake attempting to attract more biotech into the region. Of course, this is great for our region, but these companies are facing a challenging reality, especially the research oriented ones. Funding for general research is decreasing in favor of specific targeted research, such as curing cancer. If you cannot directly tie your research to these initiatives, funding is sparse, which may decrease innovation.

Hopefully, here in the North Country we can buck the trend.

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