current status of lyme disease research

2 ANSWERS

1. Guest2886
   

   I think you should focus your seminar on how the disease is being taken as a political battle zone. The depth of the controversy is a seemingly simple technicality -- the question of whether or not chronic Lyme consists of persisting infection or merely persisting symptoms most likely fueled by a lingering auto-immune response originally triggered by the disease.  As usual everything at the end of the day becomes political.
   
   But instead of what should be a cooperative and scholarly quest for the truth, politics, power and greed have polarized medical professionals, creating what one doctor called "an all-out war." Biologically speaking, Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb), the spirochetal Lyme bacterium, is an admirably crafty organism that can use its host's own body to escape eradication. According to Dr. Kenneth Liegner who's in private practice in Armonk, a group of researchers recently were able to detect the spirochete hiding inside cells using electron-microscopy.

   Report (0) (0)  |   12 years, 9 month(s) ago  

2. salim
   

   The major goals of your Lyme Disease Research Program should be to develop better means of diagnosing, treating, and preventing this disease. To accomplish these objectives, your Lyme disease research portfolio should include a broad range of activities designed to increase the understanding of this disease.
   
   They include systematic studies on:
   
   Animal models of disease
   Microbial physiology
   Molecular, genetic, and cellular mechanisms of pathogenesis
   Mechanisms of protective immunity
   Vectors, as well as vector competency, and their influence on the transmission of disease
   Efficacy of different modes of antibiotic therapy
   Development of more sensitive and reliable diagnostic tests for both early (acute) and late (chronic) Lyme disease.
   
   It should also encompass basic and clinical research studies conducted by extramural and intramural investigators.

   Report (0) (0)  |   12 years, 9 month(s) ago