Our Impact
Project Lyme strives to end the epidemic
of tick-borne diseases. We work tenaciously
- Funding cutting-edge research
- Educating the public with accurate information
- Advocating for meaningful solutions
- Supporting patients through their Lyme Journey
We know money going to science is what will solve this epidemic, but to get to the money, we need large scale awareness and educational opportunities. We also need advocacy at an individual & governmental level. We believe the coordination of all four through organizational partnerships, plus working with doctors and researchers will help Project Lyme to solve this problem.
Jennifer Weis, Board Co-Chair
Keeping Things Current
Project Lyme’s weekly newsletter ‘Lyme Notes’ provides access to timely news, discoveries, and research developments within the Lyme world.
Nan Kurzman, Board Co-Chair
Join Our NewsletterEducating Our Constituents
In the virtual world of 2020, Project Lyme had to adapt its practices to be able to educate our constituents. We produced educational video content viewed by over 100,000 individuals across numerous media platforms.
Kim Dickstein, Marketing Committee
Watch Our VideosLighting New York City Green with The Helmsley Building
The building lighting is a dream come true. It signifies to people around the world that Lyme disease patients are all around us. They are our friends, family, and neighbors, and they need our help. The lighting has the potential to educate anyone who is less familiar with Lyme and other tick-borne diseases.
Noah Johnston, Director
LEARN MOREAWARDED
$50,000
Project Lyme awarded $25,000 to filmmakers Lindsay Keys and Winslow Crane for their film “The Quiet Epidemic”. This critically acclaimed documentary follows one family’s struggle with chronic Lyme disease and works to educate the public of the injustices against them and all chronic Lyme patients.
CO-FOUNDED
ADVOCACY GROUP
Project Lyme is a founding charter member of the advocacy group Center for Lyme Action. We founded the organization in partnership with Bay Area Lyme, Alexandra Cohen, and Laure Woods in order to make legislative progress with the federal government. To date we have given $200k to support their work.
SERVED
1,000+ PEOPLE
Founded in 2022, Mothers Against Lyme hosts support groups for mothers of children with Lyme disease to provide a safe space to discuss their experience and share advice.
Research for a Cure
Project Lyme has granted almost $1,500,000 to Bay Area Lyme Foundation, in order to support the following researchers:
2018
- Brian R Crane, Ph.D., Cornell University, is focused on identifying an antimicrobial treatment by inhibiting the spirochete flagella hook cross-linking mechanism.
- Yuko Nakajima, Ph.D., Brandeis University, focuses on blocking immune evasion by Borrelia burgdorferi and other pathogens through gene conversion. Gene conversion was recently shown to be instrumental in Borrelia burgdorferi’s ability to change its surface proteins and thus keep the immune system from manufacturing antibodies.
- Geetha Parthasarathy, Ph.D., Tulane University, is focused on developing therapeutics for Lyme neuro-borreliosis. She will evaluate fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) inhibitors as therapeutic approaches. FGFR may mediate inflammation in the central nervous system and could be a supplemental therapy in acute Lyme neuro-borreliosis.
- Michal Caspi Tal, Ph.D., Stanford University, explores if B. burgdorferi has a CD47 mimic and if so, will determine the structure and sequence of that protein. She will examine how CD47 binds to the immune cell receptor and screen compounds that may be able to block this interaction so immune cells can eliminate B. burgdorferi.
- Yong Zhou, PhD, Institute for Systems Biology, explores the host response during acute and prolonged exposure to Borrelia burgdorferi with an emphasis on acute-phase proteins expressed in organs and tissues affected during infection.
2020
- Artem Rogovskyy, DVM, Ph.D., DACVM, Texas A&M University, is working to develop a robust, rapid diagnostic test that would surpass any of the existing Lyme disease diagnostic assays in its sensitivity and specificity.
- Janakiram Seshu, Ph.D., the University of Texas at San Antonio, aims to use a variety of cutting-edge technologies that are directed at limiting or eliminating the survival and transmission of Lyme disease pathogen between ticks and reservoir hosts such as small rodents that sustain pathogen life cycle in nature.
- Flightpath Biosciences, Inc, will study clinical biomarkers for Persistent Lyme Disease (PLD). Recent research at Northeastern University has shown that changes in the bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract may be predictive of PLD, which could lead to new tests.
- William Robinson, MD, Ph.D., Stanford University, studies the molecular mechanisms of autoimmune diseases and develops therapies to treat them.
2022
- Sapient Analytics will work to develop a chronic Lyme disease molecule marker.
- Emir Hodzic, Ph.D. of UC Davis is partnering with Duke University to evaluate the efficacy of tethered inhibitors of HtpG for eliminating Borrelia burgdorferi infection in a mouse model.
- Artem Rogocsky DVM, Ph.D., and Dzmitry Kurouski, Ph.D. of Texas A&M University will work to validate the Raman spectroscopy-based approach for the diagnosis of Lyme disease.
- Monica Ember, Ph.D. of Tulane will work to analyze human tissue specimens for Borrelia burgdorferi.
- Geetha Parthasarathy, Ph.D. of Tulane will assess the fibroblast growth factor system in human biological fluids as novel biomarkers of Lyme disease.
- Kerry Clark, Ph.D. of North Florida is searching for tick-borne pathogens in Rocky Mountain Wood ticks in the Bitterroot Mountains of Western Montana.
We collaborate with Bay Area Lyme because of its rigorous science agenda. Project Lyme is excited to have contributed funds cutting edge research through to these multi-year projects which they manage and look forward to sharing the findings with our community. We are grateful for this partnership which continues to demonstrate progress against tick-borne diseases, one of the most important health crises of our time.