This is Best of Week on The Academic Minute.
For the Most Popular Segment Award, Robert Linhardt, professor of biocatalysis and metabolic engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, explored a new approach to treating Lyme disease.
After 21 years on the faculty of the University of Iowa, Linhardt joined Rensselaer in 2003 as a senior constellation professor. Since 2008 Dr. Linhardt’s group has been working on a collaboration to bioengineer Heparin from E. coli. During his career in Iowa, he spent eight years as the university’s F. Wendell Miller Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and ten years as a member of the Executive Committee of the Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing. Linhardt began his professional career with a three-year postdoctorate in chemical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Most Popular Segment Award – Kicking Lyme disease Without Antibiotics or Vaccines
Heparin is a 100-year old drug, produced from pig intestines, which is widely used as an anticoagulant or blood thinner. We have long known that heparin has many additional activities, including the potential to prevent parasitic, viral, and bacterial infections. Unfortunately, bleeding would be a side effect of using natural heparin as an anti-infective.
In my lab, we are developing bioengineered heparin that is not sourced from animals as a safer and more reliable source of this life-saving blood thinner. Our bioengineering approach has another advantage: we can create designer heparins that have anti-infective activities but no anticoagulant activity. Our previous research indicates that heparin has potential for treating parasitic infections, such as malaria, and largely untreatable viral infections, such as herpes simplex, hepatitis, dengue fever, and zika.
Now, we are looking at Lyme disease, which is transmitted by tick bite and is caused by a spirochete bacterium. While Lyme can be treated with antibiotics, even treated individuals can develop persistent long-term arthritis. My lab, in collaboration with the Wadsworth Public Health Laboratories, is studying the use of designer heparins as a strategy to prevent initial infection following a tick bite. These designer heparins work by blocking the movement of the bacteria from the blood stream, where it initially enters with a tick bite, into the surrounding tissues where actual infection begins. We hope that such an approach, in combination with the use of antibiotics, can reduce the long-term complications associated Lyme disease.
Comments
3 responses to “Best of Week – Most Popular Segment – Robert Linhardt, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute – Kicking Lyme disease Without Antibiotics or Vaccines”
The invasive tick species the Asian long-horned tick is becoming established in eastern states and native tick species ranges are expanding throughout North America because of climate change. This will result in more Lyme disease cases so the need for designer heparins or similar anti infective agents cant be underestimated Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change by Mary Beth Pfeiffer. It is a must read for anyone interested in the health of planet and the animals that live on it. Here is a book review https://ticksurveillance.com/blog/
The Asian long horned tick is becoming established in the eastern USA and native tick species are expanding their range in North America as a result of climate change. Therefore, scientists are projecting increases in Lyme disease cases so the need for anti infective drugs is imperative. The likelihood of a Lyme epidemic is discussed in detail in the book Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change by Mary Beth Pfeiffer. It is a must read for anyone interested in the health of planet and the animals that live on it. Here is a book review https://ticksurveillance.com/blog/
I was diagnosed of Lyme disease four years ago. I was so terribly sick. I think my worst complaint was the severe headache. I was taken doxycycline hyclate 100 mg as treatment for Lyme disease, twice a day for 21 days. and didn’t seem to be improving. I did not display a rash or any kind of bull’s eye. Diagnosis was from blood test. We tried every shots available but nothing worked. My Lyme Disease got significantly worse and unbearable because of her cognitive thinking. In 2015, our physician advised we go with natural treatment and was introduced to Organic Herbal Clinic natural organic Lyme Disease Herbal formula, I had a total decline of symptoms with this treatment, the fever, joint pain, weakness, shortness of breath, and anxiety. and others has subsided.