Lyme Disease Prevention and Treatment with Linden Hu

Dr. Linden Hu, Vice Dean for Research at Tufts University in Boston Massachusetts and Paul and Elaine Chervinsky Professor in Immunology, discusses new and ongoing research pertaining to the prevention, treatment and diagnosis of human Lyme disease. He also discusses some of the key unanswered questions about Lyme, such as how B. burgdorferi adapts to different hosts and environments and why some patients have been known to exhibit persistent symptoms even after treatment.   Links mentioned:

• Webinar - Vector-Borne Disease in a Changing Climate https://asm.org/Webinars/Vector-Borne-Disease-in-a-Changing-Climate
• The Bulls-Eye Rash of Lyme Disease: https://asm.org/Articles/2018/April/going-skin-deep-investigating-the-cutaneous-host-p
• Pfizer and Valneva Initiate Phase 3 Study of Lyme Disease Vaccine Candidate VLA15 https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-valneva-initiate-phase-3-study-lyme-disease
• Could This Treatment Prevent Chronic Lyme Disease? https://news.northeastern.edu/2021/10/06/preventing-chronic-lyme-disease/
• Promising New Drug Would Eradicate Lyme While Leaving Gut Microbes Alone: https://www.lymedisease.org/members/lyme-times/2022-spring-news/targeted-lyme-disease-drug/
• A Tick’s Meal: https://asm.org/Podcasts/TWiM/Episodes/A-Tick-s-Meal-TWiM-258
• Evidence That the Variable Regions of the Central Domain of VlsE Are Antigenic during Infection with Lyme Disease Spirochetes https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/IAI.70.8.4196-4203.2002
• Distinct Roles for MyD88 and Toll-Like Receptors 2, 5, and 9 in Phagocytosis of Borrelia burgdorferi and Cytokine Induction https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/IAI.01600-07