Borrelia burgdorferi, which causes Lyme Disease, has evolved an unusual way of doing this process: Borrelia cells mark the location where their daughters will divide before dividing themselves.
“This mechanism is how the bacteria can overcome the fast flow of blood and avoid getting swept away,” says lead author Rhodaba Ebady. It is also likely that this tactic helps the pathogens get to sites where they are able to evade the immune system and treatment, Ebady says.
(Source: tauntongazette.com)
For all the tests, the sensitivity ranged from 84% to 95%, and the specificity ranged from 90% to 100%. The researchers said that the sensitivity of two-tier testing for the early Lyme disease samples ranged from 43% to 48%, and the metabolic profiling identified 77% to 95% of the early Lyme disease samples that were negative by two-tier testing.
“Our results bring us closer to the possibility of discovering the first targeted therapy to treat Lyme disease”
This link has a few unrelated sections, but this one was interesting:
The goal of the grant is to develop a rapid diagnostic test based upon novel antigens that increase the specificity and sensitivity of the present laboratory assays and improve discrimination between early and late stage disease
Quote: “The presence of live spirochetes in genital secretions and identical strains in sexually active couples strongly suggests that sexual transmission of Lyme disease occurs”
The publication reveals that Valneva’s vaccine candidate […] has the potential to provide protection against the majority of Borrelia species pathogenic for humans.
“They were able to see how many of the bacteria in a patient were still alive and how many were dead after interacting with the drugs.”
Might not be much to get excited about:
What the bill does do is require an intra-agency, 14-member, permanent working group to be formed and to report biennially back to Congress on strategy and progress in research. The idea is to formulate a more directed scientific framework to attack tick diseases.