VCU scientist closing in on lyme disease test and vaccine

By Mike Frontiero
VCU School of Education

RICHMOND, Va. – As states boost mosquito spraying efforts to stop the nation’s worst outbreak of West Nile Virus, researchers are fighting another bug-borne illness that infects hundreds of thousands of people every year – Lyme disease. Within a few years, they hope to have more effective treatments available for the debilitating disease, which can have serious consequences if not caught early.

Richard T. Marconi, Ph.D., a professor of microbiology and immunology at Virginia Commonwealth University, is one of only a dozen researchers in the world working to develop a vaccine and a more accurate test so doctors can treat the disease before serious health problems develop.

Marconi recently received two grants totaling $3.6 million from the National Institutes of Health to identify how Lyme disease adapts to different hosts, such as insects and mammals, and changes its genetic structure to fool their immune systems.

"The bacteria can change its identity until it's no longer recognized by the immune system, which allows the cycle to continue," Marconi says. "Breaking the cycle is key to developing effective vaccines and treatments.”

The biggest risk of Lyme disease is at this time of year, when the ticks that carry the disease are most likely to bite. The first sign of Lyme is a rash around the bite. Later on, victims can develop fatigue, arthritis and psychological problems, such as depression and memory loss. It is estimated that more than 17,000 new cases are reported in the U.S. every year.

"I think 17,000 cases a year is pretty significant and that's believed to be an underestimate of the total number of cases, so it is in fact a very important human health problem," Marconi said. "The more accurate case total is probably closer to 200,000."

Lyme disease is very difficult to diagnose and no reliable test or vaccine is currently available to physicians. "Oftentimes, we can't distinguish it from chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and other illnesses," said Phillip J. Baker, Ph.D., with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "Marconi's research will be quite valuable because the more we know about the disease, the more likely we can treat it effectively."

In April, the manufacturer of the only Lyme disease vaccine, LYMErix, took it off the market citing poor sales following unproven allegations of side effects. So the only protection now is to avoid tick bites by wearing long clothing and applying insect repellent. The disease is concentrated in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Minnesota and Wisconsin. However, cases have now been reported in almost every state.