Active projects

True to our mission statement, Time for Lyme promotes promising, innovative, cutting-edge research for the eradication of tick-borne illnesses. We are proud to showcase current research projects that we are funding wholly or in part:

Better Diagnostic Tests
The Lyme and Tick-Borne Research Center at Columbia University has been particularly interested in identifying better diagnostic tests and better treatments for people with chronic persistent symptoms. Dr. Brian Fallon, director of the Center and Associate Professor at Columbia University, cites one of the Center projects, which involved evaluating the sensitivity and specificity of 6 new assays for Lyme disease. This community screening study took place in the spring/summer of 2009 and included those with typical and atypical cases of Lyme disease. The results of this study may help to enhance the likelihood that those with Lyme disease are detected and treated more quickly. For more information about the Center, see www.columbia-lyme.org. 

Better Treatments
Dr. Benjamin J. Luft, the Edmond Pellegrino Professor of Medicine at the State University of New York (SUNY), Stony Brook, is on a quest to find better antibiotic therapies for Lyme disease. We know that the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria can remain viable in animals even after treatment with penicillin, tetracycline and macrolide antibiotics.  Dr. Luft and his colleagues have discovered that the microbes possess something known as efflux pumps in their cell membranes, which help eliminate antibiotics and other toxins from inside the cell and thus help bacteria survive. Research is underway to determine the mechanisms of resistance and whether two already approved antibiotics could block these efflux pumps and allow antibiotics to build up inside the bacteria, thus insuring their demise. 

Chronicling Chronic Lyme Disease
Dr. John Aucott, Principal Investigator for the Lyme Disease Research Foundation of Maryland, is conducting a longitudinal study in collaboration with scientists at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The clinical research team will examine the course of infection by the Lyme organism and the resulting illness from the initial rash to the chronic persistent stage. His objectives are to measure risk factors, symptom pattern and severity, and immune system response over time in patients with chronic Lyme symptoms.

Treating Persistent Symptoms
Dr. Armin Alaedini, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, is conducting research to determine the relevance and role of the body's immune system in chronic Lyme disease. To understand more fully how to help patients whose symptoms persist after antibiotic treatment, Dr. Alaedini is analyzing blood and spinal fluid for biomarkers that might correlate with various symptoms of the disease.

Diagnostic Biomarkers for Persisting Brain and Nervous System Symptoms in Lyme Disease
This study is led by Steven Schutzer, MD, a physician-scientist and Professor of Medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry-New Jersey Medical School. The study utilizes the most advanced mass spectrometry and protein separation techniques in the United States.  Step 1 is to establish the comprehensive list of proteins in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF, the liquid window of the brain) of normal healthy people. Step 2 is to do the same in people with persisting brain and nervous system symptoms in Lyme disease. Step 1 has been completed. Step 2 (Lyme CSF proteome) will follow. Steps 1 and 2 are the Discovery Phase. We expect there will be a large number of potential biomarkers. This number can be narrowed down to the top ones in a Verification Phase using samples from separate individual patients. Once biomarkers are found, the same can be searched for in the blood, which would not be possible before CSF identification.

Understanding Chronic Lyme Disease Syndrome
Dr. Karen Newell, Associate Professor Department of Biology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Scientific Director of the CU Institute of Bioenergetics, and newly affiliated with Texas A & M University, believes that the genetic blueprint of an individual determines certain immune characteristics that can contribute to the elimination of disease, or its progression into chronic and persistent infection. In healthy individuals, self-peptides and/or their presenting cells are usually removed.  Those with a blueprint that does not allow these self-peptides to be removed, tend to mount an auto-reactive or chronic inflammatory immune response.  Her theory proposes a “targeted” peptide to replace/remove the self peptides and restore a healthy immune response. Her research thereby delves into the mechanism by which unchecked immunologic responses to infection result in chronic disease or inflammation. The results of Dr. Newell's research may hold the key to unlocking the mystery behind chronic Lyme disease.

Model for Chronic Lyme Disease
Dr. Ying Zhang, professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, is perfecting culture of the L. form of Borrelia burgdorferi. L-forms have been known to be responsible for persistent infections among many bacteria. Once successful, the culture technique will allow antibiotic sensitivity testing in vitro, leading to more effective therapies and antibiotic combinations.