Catherine Brissette, an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, started studying spiral-shaped bacteria during her doctoral studies, and started studying Lyme disease as a postdoctoral fellow. That research followed her to UND.
The National Institutes of Health has awarded Brissette more than $380,000 to pursue a unique approach to fend off the effects of Lyme disease. Brissette’s study will look at how exposure to the bacteria that causes Lyme disease leads the DNA in cells to change and cause chronic inflammation.
“Controlled trials of long-term antibiotic treatment for post-treatment Lyme disease symptoms have failed to show benefits,” Brissette says in a statement. “If active infection is not responsible, what causes the persistent, lingering symptoms in patients treated with long-term antibiotics? Read full article.