The project which is led by Linda Griffith at the MIT School of Engineering will combine four independent research groups at MIT, The Ragon Institute of MGH, and Harvard. “As a result of this funding, experts in tissue engineering, systems immunology, infectious disease and chronic inflammatory diseases, now have a unique opportunity to collaborate on the great challenge of finding more effective diagnoses and treatments of Lyme disease,” says Griffith. The team will focus on how the immune system responds to the bacteria that causes
Lyme disease,
Borrelia burgdorferi, and how it fundamentally alters the immune system in some infected patients, leading to lasting inflammation. This reprogramming may be different in men and women, corresponding to emerging evidence for differences in the immune systems of male and females. While much has been learned from the analysis of patient samples and standard cell cultures, research thus far has not captured dynamic, recursive interactions between
B.burgdorferi and the human immune system, especially as a function of sex, along with various environmental factors such as nutrition and treatment with antibiotics. A holistic approach that combines the analysis of patient systems with hypothesis testing and complex immune competent 3D tissue models is needed to move the field forward. “While this project specifically focuses on Lyme, the team hopes to see their findings be applied to a variety of illnesses and diseases, specifically those affecting women, says Griffith. “Learning about how infection can cause chronic fatigue and inflammation is extremely important because we don’t really understand these symptoms in a lot of chronic diseases. The symptomatology overlaps with endometriosis and adenomyosis, and a lot of these diseases that women get that are not clearly linked to infection as a trigger.” The project team intends to engage with other Lyme research groups that the Fairbairns are funding with the objective of achieving progress through the efforts of community and approach this challenge from different angles. To complement their work, the team will collaborate with other Lyme disease researchers such as Michal Caspi Tal, an instructor at the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University who investigates immune responses to Lyme disease. GLA is excited to see the outcomes of this study.