Interrupting the Lyme Disease Life Cycle

At Yale University more emphasis is being placed on interrupting the life cycle of disease transmission than look for a new vaccine. Blocking a tick protein that protects the Lyme disease bacteria as it moves from mice back to the tick that infected them might reduce incidences of the illness among humans, reports Erol Fikrig, professor of internal medicine, in Cell Host & Microbe. Fikrig said the control and prevention of many insect-borne diseases has been primarily focused on trying to produce antibodies to fight the infection. The emphasis is now shifting to disrupting the insects’ life cycle.