Kaptur Applauds $1,948,415 Federal Award for Lyme Disease Research at UT
July 8, 2016
WASHINGTON, DC– Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-09) joined the National Institute of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to announce the award of $1,948,415 in federal research funds to The University of Toledo’s Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology research endeavors. The research project is funded for five years at $389,683 per year, and managed by The University of Toledo Medical School Professor R. Mark Wooten for the purpose of the “Intravital assessment of Borrelia burgdorferi immune clearance in skin,” which is the causative agent of Lyme disease.
“This is further national recognition for the important research being done at The University of Toledo,” said Kaptur. “Lyme disease affects 300,000 Americans each year, a number far greater than previously thought, and 40% of whom end up with long-term, serious health concerns. There are no current tests available to definitively prove if the Lyme organism is eradicated or that the patient is cured. Research such as this will help us to know more about Lyme disease.”
“Researchers have had a hard time gaining an accurate understanding of how this bacterium acts in humans and other hosts since they are obligate parasites (can only survive within animals, not in artificial cultures),” said Professor Wooten of The University of Toledo. “Our group at the University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences has been able to develop advanced microscopy models that allow us to directly observe the bacteria within the skin of individual intact living mice without harming the animal, and can then continuously observe how they interact with the host’s immune cells over long periods of time. This NIH-funded study will use these methods to identify key mechanisms that allow the bacteria to evade the host’s immune responses, with the hope they will provide new targets for Lyme disease-directed therapies.”
Kaptur is a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, which has oversight over the National Institute of Health.
Background:
For background on Professor Wooten: https://www.utoledo.edu/med/depts/micro/faculty/wooten.html
To contact Professor Wooten: r.mark.wooten@utoledo.edu
For background on the NIAID grant announcement: https://hhsgrants.econsys.com/apex/f?p=103:210:0::NO:210:P210_GRANT_ID:161830
For background on The University of Toledo: https://utoledo.edu/