The successful development of a rapid new diagnostic Lyme disease test is owed in part to the test samples contributed to The Bay Area Lyme Foundation’s Lyme Disease Biobank, specifically from the patients of Dr. George Dempsey’s East Hampton Family Medicine practice.
Months after a U.S. Congress–mandated working group sounded the alarm about tickborne illnesses and urged more federal action and money, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is readying a strategic plan for these diseases…The funding “will get new technology out of the shadows,” spurring development of nascent approaches and collaborations, says Maria Gomes-Solecki, a veterinarian… Read More
Kirby Stafford, Connecticut’s state entomologist, knows only one surefire way to reduce tick populations enough to cut Lyme disease rates: killing deer. Otherwise, he says, “very little by itself really reduces tick numbers enough.” But in some Connecticut neighborhoods Stafford has been testing a new strategy, one he hopes might show real promise after years… Read More
One of the most exciting novel developments is an oral vaccine developed not for people, but for mice, invented by Maria Gomes-Solecki at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center . . . The idea is that by vaccinating them, we can control Lyme disease in these rodents and the ticks, and subsequently reduce transmission… Read More
Maria Gomes-Solecki, a medical microbiologist at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, agrees — which is why she invented the mouse vaccine that Williams is testing.
