Lori Burrows

Lori Lee Burrows is a Canadian microbiologist. She is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Microbe-Surface Interactions at McMaster University.

Early life and education
Burrows completed her Bachelor of Science degree and PhD at the University of Guelph. Upon completing her degrees, she was an Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Industrial Fellow with Langford Inc. and a Cystic Fibrosis Canada Kinsmen Postdoctoral Fellow.

University of Toronto
Following her fellowships, Burrows became an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto and served as a scientist in the Hospital for Sick Childrens Research Institute. She also served as Director of the Centre for Infection and Biomaterials Research at Toronto General Hospital. As a new faculty member, Burrows received the Connaught New Staff Matching Award and received the Dean's Fund Competition for New Staff Award. While at Sick Children's, Burrows oversaw research into Pseudomonas aeruginos and how the bacteria attach themselves to surfaces. In 2002, she was named the winner of the McMurrich Award and received a two-year grant from the Kidney Foundation of Canada for her project, "Development of anti-microbial coatings for peritoneal catheters suitable for simultaneous exchange procedures." She then received the 2003 George Armstrong-Peters Prize as a "young investigator who has shown outstanding productivity during his/her initial period as an independent investigator as evidenced by research publications in peer reviewed journals, grants held, and students trained." In 2004, Burrows received the Elsie Winifred Crann Memorial Trust Award in Medical Research and was invited to be a member of the Grants Review panels of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the National Institutes of Health.

McMaster University
Burrows left the University of Toronto in 2006 to join McMaster University as a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences. Upon joining the faculty, she focused her research on studying biofilms and Type IV pili (T4P) to understand how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. Her laboratory also began investigating the effectiveness of Type IV pili as components in vaccines and how they compare to other types of tuberculosis vaccines. Starting in 2012, she served as a grant application reviewer and panel chair at McMaster's Canadian Institutes of Health Research University Delegate. In March 2017, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. The following month, she was recognized with a McMaster University Faculty Association Award for Outstanding Service.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Burrows published op-eds describing the danger of the coronavirus and encouraged Canadians to get vaccinated against the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. In June 2020, she was honoured with the Canadian Society of Microbiologists Murray Award for Career Achievement, the Society's highest award for researchers. The following year, she was elected a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences for her "outstanding research accomplishments, international leadership in the microbiology community and dedicated mentorship." Burrows was also appointed a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Microbe-Surface Interactions to fund her research on the superbug Pseudomonas aeruginosa and how it forms antibiotic-resistant biofilms. In March 2023, Burrows was named the recipient of the Canadian Association for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases' John G. FitzGerald Award for her research into Pseudomonas aeruginosa.