Lyme Disease: Leaders, Landmarks, and LOOKING Ahead By Cynthia A. Read
Nearly 30 years after a New York Medical College physician-researcher first met a formidable foe called Lyme disease, the College has built a global reputation for advancing understanding and treatment of the disease. When Gary P. Wormser, M.D., diagnosed his first case of Lyme disease, he could not have guessed that the College was about to become world-renowned for its expertise in the country’s most common tick-borne infection. It was 1981, and the spiral-shaped bacteria, or spirochetes, dubbed Borrelia burgdorferi, had just been identified as the cause of Lyme disease—and the tiny deer ticks known to carry the infectious agent were just beginning to burgeon in Westchester. Now, some 29 years and nearly 200 research grants later, the name of New York Medical College has become synonymous with many of the most important advances in the research, diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease. Like other physicians in the region in the early 1980s, Dr. Wormser began seeing more and more patients with a tick-borne ailment that came with flu-like symptoms and a characteristic bull’s-eye rash, signs of an emerging infectious disease that had a lot of doctors and public health officials very worried about its virulence and pervasiveness.
In 1985, Dr. Wormser recruited Durland Fish, Ph.D., who set up a medical entomology laboratory in nearby Armonk, N.Y. Dr. Fish recalls, “Both [Gary and I] believed that Lyme disease was about to become a significant public health problem in the region because I, as an entomologist, knew the prevalence of infection in ticks and he, as an infectious disease clinician, knew the outcome of infection in his patients.” The unlikely pair of scientists, who agree that at first they could scarcely understand what the other was talking about, became lifelong friends and collaborators, even after Dr. Fish accepted a position at Yale University, where he is now professor of epidemiology of microbial diseases in the School of Public Health.
believed that College researchers and clinicians had the expertise and drive to help him position the university as a leader in Lyme disease research. He started by enlisting Richard D. Levere, M.D., then chairman of the Department of Medicine, to develop a Lyme disease program that would be based in the department’s Division of Infectious Diseases with Dr. Wormser at the helm. The program grew slowly, and in 1989, using funds raised through targeted efforts by Dr. Connolly, the College was able to offer seed money for small Lyme disease research projects to attract new researchers. One of the proposals came from Ira Schwartz, Ph.D., then a professor of
But at New York Medical College, more needed to be done. John J. Connolly, Ed.D., who was then president of the College,
Ixodes scapularis, commonly known as the deer tick, has wrought havoc in the Northeastern United States over the past 30 years. As the primary vector for Lyme disease, it also carries parasites that transmit babesiosis, human granulocytic anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis and Borrelia burgdorferi. Spring / Summer 2010 | 9