Bay Area Lyme Foundation

I've been so incredibly touched by the response to our findings that went online yesterday that #Lyme disease causing bacteria can live in female reproductive organs for over a year and increase risk for gynecological disease!!! We found this increased risk in mice and humans! Back at Stanford, when my team put our heads together with Victoria Mascetti Ph.D., tremendous efforts by Grace Blacker, Sarah Galloway, Maia Shoham, and Paige H. revealed that infected mice got cysts & tissue damage in their uterus and ovaries. With the support of Linda Griffith and the MIT Center for Gynepathology research, Paige H. was able to really dive in and bring this all together with our incredible collaborators at MIT and beyond. Special imaging technologies by Sixian You's lab with Kunzan Liu revealed the bacteria in endometrial tissue of the uterus. Qingying Feng and Brandon Lee would track these glowing bacteria throughout the mouse body for months, with the help of some extraordinary undergraduate researchers, Jade Kuan, Amie Kitjasateanphun, and a graduate student Sophie VanderWeele. Nasa Sinnott-Armstrong with the help of Prasanna Padmanabham, Monika Perez, and Rangarajan Bharadwaj then studied 100,000s of human health records. They found that people with Lyme had much higher rates of endometriosis & other multiple other gynecological problems. Luckily my lab also now has our very own ObGyn on the team Guido Pisani who is well on his way to the next chapter of this story, so stay tuned, there's much more to come! For years people have been asking if Lyme disease might cause miscarriage and other pregnancy problems. Our study shows an important link between this infection and gynecological disease and more research is vital. This research changes how we understand Lyme. It's a much bigger problem than we thought, especially for women. I'm so proud of first author Paige H., and so grateful to all of the authors who contributed tremendously to this research! This would simply not have been possible without Nasa Sinnott-Armstrong, and all our co-authors Linda Griffith, Beth Pollack, Sixian You, Grace Blacker, Sarah Galloway, Qingying Feng, Prasanna Padmanabham, Guido Pisani, Brandon Lee, Grace Loeser, Kunzan Liu, Kaylon Bruner-TranEmelia von Saltza, Victoria Mascetti Ph.D., Eric Gars, Hanna M. Ollila, Satu Strausz, Georgie Nahass, and a whole village of support, more than I can list here. I also want to acknowledge the transformational philanthropic support by Emily and Malcolm Fairbairn which made this research possible! Also Sue Faber was an inspiration for this work, as well as so many patients who reached out with heart wrenching stories that moved us to make sure this topic got the research and attention it deserved. https://lnkd.in/e-H9WaYV

Lyme carditis is an infection that occurs when Lyme bacteria enter your heart tissue. The bacteria affect your heart’s electrical system or can cause inflammation (myocarditis or pericarditis). According to a study, 90% of patients with Lyme carditis develop cardiac conduction abnormalities, and 60% develop signs of perimyocarditis. 5-10% of cases may also present with fulminant myocarditis, which impacts the heart’s ability to fully contract. Dr. Adrian Baranchuk, a cardiologist, shares information on how to diagnose and treat Lyme carditis in this resource from our website: https://lnkd.in/e-HvwxD3 #projectlyme #lyme #tickbornediseases #coinfections #lymediseaseawareness #health #tickbite #medicine #bacteria #carditis #lymecarditis #heartproblems #cardiac #science #research

A female adult Ixodes pacificus tick glistening in the morning dew yesterday in the San Francisco Bay Area. Fun fact: Up to 30% of these Bay Area #ticks can transmit human pathogens such as the bacteria that causes #Lyme disease. Stanford University School of Medicine University of California, San Francisco QB3 Institut Pasteur Bay Area Lyme Foundation Seemay Chou Dan Salkeld Andrea Swei LymeDisease.org Project Lyme Tara DiMilia Charles Chiu Sunjya Schweig, MD

BlueArc Biosciences is proud to announce that we've been selected as a Phase 3 winner in the LymeX Diagnostics Prize. With an estimated 476,000 cases in America annually, the U.S. has an urgent need for new Lyme Disease diagnostics. The BlueArc test is designed to detect Borrelia infection from the first symptoms. The funding from LymeX is helping us accelerate the development of our diagnostic towards clinical trials. The LymeX Diagnostics Prize is made possible through a pledge of more than $10 million from the @Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation with the purpose of advancing scientific, technical, and clinical innovation to create better diagnostic for #Lyme disease. Learn more about our Lyme diagnostic and Phase 3 support: https://lnkd.in/gdUAtWma