James Phelan is a scientist at the Tufts Lyme Disease Initiative working to find ways of reducing the numbers of Lyme-carrying mice and ticks. To do so, he is using next generation sequencing techniques to rapidly identify genes critical for survival of the Lyme disease bacterium in its different host. These genes can then be targeted to use for eradication of the organism.

People catch Lyme disease from ticks, who in turn get the bacteria from wild mice. But why don’t mice get the same disease? We think it’s something to do with differences in the immune systems of mice and people. Tanja and Urmila are immunologists studying these differences at the Tufts Lyme Disease Initiative. They tell us about what they’re doing in the lab to try to understand how our own immune system contributes to Lyme disease.