SNF Institute for Global Infectious Disease Research at The Rockefeller University

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the importance of timely investments in basic science, swift and effective international collaborations, preparing the next generation of scientific leaders, and of public trust in science. The SNF Institute for Global Infectious Disease Research at The Rockefeller University helps ensure that investigators have the resources to take scientific risks in anticipation of and in reaction to global health threats, research infrastructure that is paramount to stopping future pandemics.

Established in 2023, the SNF Institute built on a longstanding relationship between SNF and Rockefeller, one of the world’s foremost centers of scientific achievement in biomedical research. It seeks to combat infectious diseases around the world, from ancient pathogens like malaria and tuberculosis to recent and emerging threats.

Nobel Laureate Charles M. Rice, who leads Rockefeller’s Laboratory of Virology and Infectious Disease, directs the institute, which covers mutually complementary areas of research, partnership, training, and communication. Barry S. Coller, Physician-in-Chief of The Rockefeller University Hospital, serves as co-director for clinical studies, and Michel Nussenzweig serves as the co-director for immunological studies.

SNF’s grant supports upgrades to the Rockefeller University Hospital and to laboratory biosafety levels, provides flexible funding for early-stage, interdisciplinary discovery science, aids the acquisition of cutting-edge technologies, and helps translate lab research into clinical care.

The grant also supports the SNF Institute in strengthening, formalizing, and expanding international collaboration; convening annual scientific retreats that can catalyze new research directions and accelerate ongoing projects; holding virtual research seminars for students and trainees throughout the year; and organizing broader multi-sectoral global conferences that encompass science, health, bioethics, and policy with a major focus on how to ensure that the benefits of advances are shared equitably.

SNF’s grant is helping enable the institute attract, train, and empower the next generation of scientific leaders through funding for promising young doctoral students and postdoctoral trainees to conduct infectious disease research. The institute is also partnering with the university’s science outreach program for middle and high school students, many from under-resourced schools, aimed at sparking interest in scientific and clinical careers.

The institute will make try to combat misinformation through a webinar series and a variety of virtual events. 

SNF’s support builds on a longstanding relationship between the Foundation and The Rockefeller University, including in the SNF-David Rockefeller River Campus which supports interdisciplinary collaboration between research laboratories to spur scientific advances. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, SNF also supported round-the-clock COVID-related research at the university. Other SNF grants to The Rockefeller University have supported the university’s Women in Science Initiative, an SNF graduate fellowship, an endowed clinical scholarship, and more.