Michele Herndon, MSN, R.N.

Michele Herndon, MSN, R.N., is the program director of the Undiagnosed Diseases Network Foundation's (UDNF) Patient Navigation Program. For the past two decades, she has served as a pediatric nurse, leader, and manager in an academic hospital setting. Michele is also the mother to Mitchell who enrolled in the Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN) in 2017 after five years of symptoms. After genetic sequencing and a model organism study using fruit flies, his gene mutation was identified by the UDN. Mitchell died in 2019 from the ultra-rare disease that was ultimately named after him, Mitchell Syndrome. Michele and her family started the Mitchell & Friends Foundation to support families and raise both awareness and money for research into Mitchell Syndrome. Michele lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and is currently working to complete her Doctorate in Nursing Practice at the University of Missouri-Columbia.