Lyme Disease Research Center
Our overall goals of the Lyme and Other Tick-borne Disease Research Center are research
discovery, risk assessment, optimization of treatment and management, and public health
intervention and prevention.
300,000
new cases each year
An estimated 300,000 new cases of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases arise each year, posing a significant threat to humans and domestic animals.
95% occur
in the Northeast and upper Midwest
Ninety-five percent of the cases occur where almost one-third of the U.S. population lives – in the Northeast and upper Midwest.
Lyme disease can result in a myriad of symptoms, including fever, headache, muscle aches, fatigue, joint pain, and a circular or non-distinct rash, although sometimes a bullseye rash may appear. If left untreated, Lyme disease can lead to serious neurologic and cardiac complications.
Our Lyme and Other Tick-borne Disease Research Center brings together faculty and physicians from a broad geographic area of New York state and the Northeast, as well as facilities and databases to facilitate ecological and epidemiological studies and diagnostics, public health education and outreach, and ecology and epidemiology studies to optimize Lyme and other tick-borne disease treatment and management.
Center Directors
Professor Ralph M. Garruto, a biomedical anthropologist and zoologist, focuses his research on natural experimental models of disease, using both field and laboratory approaches. He and his research group, including graduate and undergraduate students, have been collecting data on ecological and human behavioral risk of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases in built environments over the past decade.
