Overview
- Makoto Kuroda, 41, was charged April 14 in Dane County with second-degree recklessly endangering safety and tampering with a household product.
- Police were called to the Influenza Research Institute on April 6 after a co-worker noticed a strange taste in a half-finished water bottle and a chemical odor on lab shoes days earlier.
- Preliminary testing by the Wisconsin State Hygiene Lab found a presumptive positive for chloroform in the bottle at levels so high test strips could not report a value.
- Court documents say Kuroda admitted the tampering by telling the colleague and emailing a supervisor, and they allege he was resentful after the colleague’s promotion.
- The complaint says he placed microliter amounts of paraformaldehyde mixed with Trizol, chemicals common in labs, and that he used ChatGPT to look up harmful amounts; the university put him on leave, revoked his access, and a $5,000 bond bars contact and entry to UW labs.