Researchers at the Tufts Lyme Disease Initiative recently received grants totaling more than $7 million to build on an already impressive array of discoveries that Tufts' teams have made to combat tick-borne diseases.
SCARBOROUGH May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month, and scientists with the Vector-Borne Disease Lab at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute (MMCRI) are conducting several surveys and research projects this spring and summer to better.
As people weary of being cooped up during a pandemic winter look forward to a summer outside, residents across the northeastern United States are once again confronted with a familiar virulent pathogen lurking in the woods and fields. Unlike coronavirus, however, this dangerous microorganism doesn’t float through the air it enters the body through the bite of a tick.
Lyme disease has been a constant scourge since it was identified five decades ago on the Connecticut coastline, before spreading across the New England and Mid-Atlantic states. Caused by the bacterium
Borrelia burgdorferi (and its cousin
Borrelia mayonii), the disease has long baffled scientists with its strangely stealthy manifestations.