Occi, James

James L. Occi, PhD (candidate) Research Teaching Specialist RNJMS Center for Vector , Department of Entomology Rutgers University Newark, NJ

The Discovery of the “Asian long-horned tick,” Haemaphysalis longicornis, in New Jersey: A Combination of Perseverance, Luck and the Joy of Tick Collecting”

James (Jim) Occi is a microbiologist who has been involved in searching for new antibiotic entities for almost 30 years. He has done research in big pharma for over 20 years and continues this endeavor as a research microbiologist at New Jersey Medical School in the Department of Emerging Pathogens (Newark). Jim is pursuing his PhD at Rutgers University at the Center for Vector Biology (New Brunswick) and wants to be a medical entomologist when he grows up. For his thesis, Jim is studying tick-borne diseases in New Jersey tick populations under the direction of Dr. Dina Fonseca. He has a BS and MA in Biology from Montclair State University and an MS in Microbiology from Seton Hall University.

Conference Lecture Summary

In November 2017 the USDA confirmed an infestation of the longhorned tick (Haemaphysalis longicornis) on a sheep in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. This tick is indigenous to parts of China, Korea and Japan where it typically feeds on cattle. I will summarize the latest on where the longhorned tick has been found in the US and discuss ongoing research on its ecology, life cycle and possible involvement in transmission of tick-borne pathogens.

Pal, Utpal

Utpal Pal, PhD Professor & Director, VMSC Graduate Program Veterinary Medicine University of Maryland College Park , MD https://vetmed.umd.edu/about/faculty/utpal-pal https://agnrfacultystaff.umd.edu/upal

Immune Evasion of Lyme Disease Agents

Dr. Utpal Pal, PhD, is a Professor and Director of Veterinary Medical Sciences graduate program at the University of Maryland, College Park. For more than two decades, Pal laboratory is studying the molecular mechanisms of microbial persistence, pathogenesis, vector biology and transmission events relevant to Lyme disease. This multi-system infection in human is caused by an atypical group of bacterial pathogens, Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, which are transmitted by Ixodes ticks. Dr. Pal’s studies over the past decades have contributed in identifying the biological significance of several B. burgdorferi virulence determinants, roles of host or vector molecules in microbial pathogenesis and/or host-pathogen interaction as well as developing functional genomics and gene manipulations tools in Lyme borreliosis research. More recent discoveries from Pal laboratory included a recently identified interferon-like defense response in ticks as well as a novel immune evasion mechanism of B. burgdorferi. Collectively, these studies seek to contribute to the development of novel preventive and therapeutic interventions against serious illnesses that is highly prevalent in the globe.

To date, Dr. Pal has trained 10 doctoral students, 21 post- doctoral fellows and six junior/sabbatical faculty members in his laboratory — the majority of whom are engaged in various scientific and academic careers, including leadership positions. For the past two years, he is serving as the Director of Veterinary Medical Sciences Graduate program and an Investigator/Mentor on NIH training grants in the campus. Dr. Pal has authored more then 80 peer-reviewed research articles, and edited one book and four book chapters onB. burgdorferi. He has presented over 25 invited presentations on various aspects of Lyme disease and contributed as guest editor or editorial board members for seven journals. Research studies in Dr. Pal’s laboratory are funded by multiple sources, including Federal, State, Private organizations and Pharmaceutical Industry.

Conference Lecture Summary

Borrelia burgdorferi and related spirochetes cause Lyme disease, a prevalent tick-borne zoonosis. The pathogen displays a remarkable evolutionary divergence from other bacteria and thus it is perhaps not surprising that the vast majority of the B. burgdorferi genome encodes proteins of yet unknown functions. To advance our knowledge of microbial pathogenesis, we have characterized a select set of structurally unique B. burgdorferi gene-products that act as novel virulence determinants and support spirochete infection. Our most recent studies uncovered a unique innate immune evasion strategy of B. burgdorferi that is orchestrated by one of its cell surface proteins of unknown function, annotated as BBA57. We show the protein is highly induced during early mammalian infection and supports microbial persistence via evasion of a plethora of host microbicidal response. We also discovered a remarkable plasticity in such spirochete immune evasion strategy as even in its absence, B. burgdorferi still able to adapt and establish long-term infection. Understanding the fundamentals of spirochetal immune evasion mechanisms that ensures their host persistence is critical for the development of novel approaches to combat highly-prevalent vector-borne infections like Lyme borreliosis.

Naviaux, Robert

Robert K. Naviaux, MD, PhD Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, Pathology, and Genetics The Mitochondrial and Metabolic Disease Center University of California, San Diego School of Medicine San Diego, CA naviauxlab.ucsd.edu biochemgen.ucsd.edu

Metabolomic Features of Chronic Illness—Lessons from Gulf War Illness and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Dr. Naviaux is the founder and co-director of the Mitochondrial and Metabolic Disease Center (MMDC), and Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, Pathology, and Genetics at UCSD. He directs a core laboratory for metabolomics at UCSD. He is the co-founder and a former president of the Mitochondrial Medicine Society (MMS), and a founding associate editor of the journal Mitochondrion. He is an internationally known expert in human genetics, inborn errors of metabolism, metabolomics, and mitochondrial medicine. Dr. Naviaux is the discoverer of the cause of Alpers syndrome—the oldest Mendelian form of mitochondrial disease—and the developer of the first DNA test to diagnose it. His lab also discovered the first mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations that cause genetic forms of autism and the metabolic features of the cell danger response (CDR). He directed the first FDA-approved clinical trial to study the safety and efficacy of the antipurinergic drug suramin as a new treatment for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). His development of new methods in metabolomics showed that several complex chronic disoreders like ASD and chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) have a metabolic signature that can be used in diagnosis and lead to fresh insights to treatment.

Conference Lecture Summary

Metabolomics has emerged as a powerful new tool in systems biology. We have collected data on over 600 natural metabolites in 8 different chronic disease cohorts by broad- spectrum, targeted metabolomics using hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (HILIC-ESI-MS/MS), or LC-MS/MS for short. These studies have included autism spectrum disorder (ASD), post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with and without traumatic brain injury (TBI), Gulf War Illness (GWI), major depressive disorder (MDD), myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), the response to endurance and resistance exercise, and natural aging. In addition, we have studied mouse models and the developmental state known as dauer in the worm, C. elegans. These studies have shown that a diagnostic metabolic signature is present in every chronic illness studied to date, and that strong gender differences are present in each disease. All chronic illnesses that last more than about 6 months were found to express the metabolic features of a universal cellular response to environmental stress called the cell danger response (CDR). The CDR is comprised of a choreographed sequence of cellular metabolic transitions that must be completed as part of an evolutionarily conserved healing cycle. Chronic illness results when the healing cycle is blocked at different stages by abnormal metabokine signaling. Metabokines are signlaing molecules like ATP, butyrate, succinate, α-ketoglutarate, long chain fatty acids, eicosanoids, and sphingolipids that are natural products of metabolism inside of cells, but bind to specific G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) and ionotropic receptors outside of the cell. The relevance of these findings for post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS) will be discussed.

Szantyr, Beatrice

Beatrice M. Szantyr, MD, FAAP

Internal Medicine

Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine

Lincoln, ME

Lyme Disease – An Ounce of Prevention: Survey of the Evidence for Prevention Strategies in Lyme Disease

Dr. Beatrice Szantyr, a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and member of the American College of Physicians, has been board certified in both internal medicine and pediatrics. She received her undergraduate degree from Fordham University, her doctorate in medicine from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, and completed her internship and residency in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at St. Louis University Hospitals and Cardinal Glennon Memorial Hospital for Children. She made her way to Maine over 30 years ago in fulfillment of a National Health Service Corps commitment. Through her private Medicine and Pediatrics practice in rural Maine she has provided a broad range of clinical services in a variety of settings for people of all ages. Her current professional activities are focused in education.

Dr. Szantyr has lectured on Lyme disease and related tick- borne disorders throughout Maine and New England to both professional and community groups. She is an active member of Maine CDC’s Vector Borne Disease Work Group as well as the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society, serving on the provider education working group to develop and present the full day evidence-based course: The Fundamentals of Lyme Disease. She is the medical advisor for MaineLyme, a Maine- based non-profit formed in 2010 and dedicated to decreasing the occurrence of Lyme and related tick-borne diseases in Maine through awareness, prevention, education and advocacy.

Conference Lecture Summary

The increasing number of cases of Lyme disease as well as the spread of Lyme disease into previously non-endemic areas have been well documented. Environmental and other factors that contribute to this expansion continue to be evaluated. Early diagnosis and treatment have been shown to be effective in many cases. But not every case is recognized early. Of the cases confirmed by CDC over a 15 year period, 30% did not have a history of the most recognizable early sign/symptom of the illness: the EM rash. The consequences of missed and delayed diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease are significant. All of these elements make prevention an important consideration.

Many common-sense measures have been proposed over the years for the prevention of Lyme disease, though often without much evidence of efficacy. Several levels of prevention have evolved to have a larger body of evidence supporting their use. These measures range from the immediate failsafe of Ixodes tick bite management strategies to personal protection measures and host and property management, vaccine development for humans and host animals, and wider integrated pest management strategies that combine many of these individual measures in a more comprehensive approach to this important public health issue.

This presentation will present a survey of prevention approaches and the evidence supporting their implementation.

Ben Mamoun, Choukri

Choukri Ben Mamoun, PhD Associate Professor Department of Internal Medicine & Department of Microbial Pathogenesis Section of Infectious Diseases Yale School of Medicine New Haven, CT https://medicine.yale.edu/micropath/people/choukri_benmamoun-2 .profile

Targeting the Achilles Heel of Babesia Parasites’ Mode of Survival Within Human Red Blood Cells

Choukri Ben Mamoun is an Associate Professor at Yale with a primary appointment in the Department of Internal Medicine and a secondary appointment in the Department of Microbial Pathogenesis. He received his PhD in 1996 in Molecular Microbiology in France from University of Paris XI and Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon. In 1996, he joined the Department of Molecular Microbiology at Washington University as a Research Fellow of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and in 2000 became a faculty member at University of Connecticut Health Center. In 2009, he joined the faculty at the Yale School of Medicine as a Principal Investigator with a focus on the biology and therapy of the protozoan parasites that cause human malaria and babesiosis.

Dr. Ben Mamoun has authored 78 peer-reviewed papers in the field of eukaryotic pathogenesis. Among his important findings in the malaria field are: the development of selectable markers for genetic manipulation of P. falciparum (Mamoun et al., PNAS 1999), discovery of a novel metabolic pathway for lipid metabolism in P. falciparum (Pessi et al, PNAS 2004), creation of the first conditional knockouts of P. falciparum lacking the purine transporter or phosphoethanolamine methyltransferase (El Bissati et al., PNAS 2006 and Witola et al., JBC 2007), discovery of lipid regulation as a critical step in P. falciparum sexual differentiation (Bobenchik et al., PNAS 2013). His notable findings in the babesiosis field are: Discovery of a new combination therapy consisting of atovaquone and endochin-like quinolone (ELQ-334) for radical cure of babesiosis infection in mice (Lawres et al., J. Exp. Med, 2016) and the development of a new diagnostic test for detection of B. microti active infection (Thekkiniath et al., J. Clin. Microb. 2018).

Dr. Ben Mamoun has served as a member or chair of several NIH and DOD study sections and other international organizations. He has served on the editorial board of several research journals, presented seminars and lectures both nationally and internationally and received multiple awards including the Patterson Award, the Burroughs Welcome Award and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Award.

In addition to his academic program, Dr. Ben Mamoun is the founder of a biotech company, ELIV5 Therapeutics. Conference Lecture Summary

Since the completion of the assembly and annotation of the genome of the human pathogen Babesia microti, my laboratory has been involved in the development of novel approaches to detect active babesia infection and discovery of more effective therapies to treat human babesiosis. In this lecture, I will present new data showing that B. microti uses a novel mechanism for delivery of proteins into the host, and how we exploited this information to develop a highly sensitive assay for detection of B. microti active infection in human and mouse blood. Furthermore, I will present our recent discovery of a new combination therapy that targets a critical step in B. microti metabolism during its development within mouse and human red blood cells and results in radical cure of the disease.

Flegr, Jaroslav

Jaroslav Flegr, PhD Professor of Ecology and Associate Professor of National Institute of Mental Health Klecany, Czechia Faculty of Science, , Czechia

The Effect of Pet-Transmitted Diseases on the Mental and Physical Health of the

General Population

Jaroslav Flegr is an evolutionary biologist and evolutionary psychologist affiliated to Fac. of Science Charles University and National Institute of Public Health, Czechia. He is a discoverer of effects of latent and Rh factor on human behavior and mental and physical health, as well as an author of theories of frozen plasticity and frozen . He has published four books and about 150 research articles.

Conference Lecture Summary

Cross-sectional studies showed that being injured by a cat correlates with symptoms of impaired mental health, such as depressiveness, the probability of being diagnosed with major depression, and also with the occurrence of many physical health problems. Cat scratch disease, the infection with the bacterium Bartonella henselae, was suggested to be responsible for these associations. We have recently found that the situation can be more complicated and that other pathogens transmitted from cats can be responsible for the associations

Platts-Mills, Thomas A.

Thomas A. Platts-Mills, PhD, FRS Professor of Medicine and Microbiology Chief, Division of Asthma, Allergy & Immunology University of Virginia School of Medicine Charlottesville, VA https://med.virginia.edu/asthma-allergy-immunology/faculty-fel lows/meet-the-chief/ Sensitization to Alpha-gal as a Consequence of Lone Star Tick Bites

Thomas Platts-Mills is Professor of Medicine and Microbiology at the UVA School of Medicine. The son of a British member of parliament, he was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and received his medical training at St. Thomas’ Hospital Medical School in London. He earned a PhD from London University and completed a fellowship at Johns Hopkins University under the tutelage of Kimishige Ishizaka. He has been a member of Britain’s Royal College of Physicians since 1971.

Dr. Platts-Mills joined UVA’s faculty in 1982, and has served as chief of the Allergy division since 1993. He has also served a term as president of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (AAAAI).

In 2010, Dr. Platts-Mills was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for his research into the causes of asthma and allergic disease. The Royal Society is the United Kingdom’s national academy of science and the oldest scientific academy in the world. Only a small number of fellows are physicians, and Platts-Mills is the first allergist ever elected. His election was based on more than 30 years of research on the role that dust mite, cat and cockroach allergens play in the development of allergic disease and asthma.

Conference Lecture Summary

In large areas of the United States, the lone star tick Amblyomma americanum has increased dramatically because of the increase in the deer population which is the primary breeding host for this tick. The lone stars are known vectors for several diseases, but recently it has been shown that bites from larval or adult ticks can induce sensitization to an important oligosaccharide of the non-primate mammals.

This sensitization can be identified by an in vitro assay for IgE to galactose alpha-1, 3-galactose (alpha- gal.) The presence of this antibody was first recognized because of severe reactions to the monoclonal antibody cetuximab. However, equally significant, it is now clear that sensitized subjects can experience delayed anaphylaxis 2-5 hours after eating red meat. This form of delayed reactivity was initially difficult to diagnose. It is now clear that the combination of reactions starting in adult life, the characteristic delay after eating red meat and a positive blood test, is sufficient to diagnose the condition. Furthermore, in these cases a diet avoiding red meat is effective in 90% of cases in preventing further severe attacks. Strikingly, bites of these ticks that are related to sensitization produce severe and prolonged itching at the site, which is very different from the experience with bites from Ixodes scapularis. Although the lone star tick routinely carries Rickettsia amblyomii, there is very little evidence that the sensitization to the oligosaccharide is caused by symbionts.

Buchthal, Joanna

Joanna Buchthal, PhD (candidate) Project Manager, Mice Against Ticks MIT Media Lab Massachusetts Institute of Technology Boston, MA

A scientist, entrepreneur, and designer, Joanna is currently pursuing her PhD in the Sculpting Evolution Group at the MIT Media Lab. Her research is focused on preventing Lyme and other tick-borne diseases by engineering heritably resistant white-footed mice, the primary reservoir of the pathogens that cause many tick-borne illnesses in the Northeast. As the Project Manager and a resident of Martha’s Vineyard, she has been pioneering an open and community-guided approach to her research by involving her own community at every stage, a model of engagement she hopes will spread throughout science. Previously, she has worked as a researcher at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and at NASA’s Habitability Design Center, and as COO of a natural language processing start-up. She holds a BFA in industrial design from Rhode Island School of Design.

Mice Against Ticks: Community-Guided Research for Public Health

Few areas are as afflicted by Lyme as the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, which have some of the highest rates of infection in the nation. Mice Against Ticks is an open, community-guided project which aims to safeguard these islands by reducing the number of disease-carrying ticks. Because most ticks become infected when they bite infected white-footed mice, scientists are working to create tick-borne disease resistant white-footed mice that are capable of passing their resistance to their offspring. If a large number of resistant mice were released onto an island like Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket, they would introduce immunity to the native mouse population by breeding with the local mice, deplete the local disease reservoir and dramatically reduce the population of infected ticks. Mainland mouse populations within individual towns could be similarly immunized using daisy threshold technology being developed in Dr. Kevin Esvelt’s lab at MIT. Uniquely, the communities of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket have been involved in the project from the outset, providing direction before any experiments were conducted in the lab. Mice Against Ticks will be guided by public feedback as we aim to provide a long-lasting, safe and eco-friendly solution to this growing public health challenge.

Robinson,William

William Robinson, MD, PhD Professor of Medicine (Immunology and Rheumatology) Staff Physician, VA Palo Alto Stanford University Palo Alto, CA http://robinsonlab.stanford.edu

Protective and Pathogenic B Cell Responses in Lyme Disease

The Robinson laboratory works in the fields of B cell biology, autoimmunity and inflammation. Dr. Robinson pioneered development of protein arrays, lipid arrays, and high- throughput sequencing approaches to identify the targets of antibody responses, investigate mechanisms underlying disease, and to develop novel therapeutic approaches. Dr. Robinson co- founded the Stanford Human Immune Monitoring Center, serves on the editorial boards of several journals, and serves on the Board of Directors of the American College of Rheumatology and the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies. He is an inventor on 23 patent applications, and technologies developed in his Stanford and VA laboratories have been licensed to nine companies in the biotechnology industry. Dr. Robinson was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Henry Kunkel Society. Dr. Robinson received his MD and PhD degrees from Stanford University, and completed his clinical training in internal medicine at UCSF.

Conference Lecture Summary

We are applying immune repertoire sequencing to characterize the B cell and antibody response followingBorrelia burgdorferi infection and in post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS). We show that robust B cell responses producing anti-Borrelia burgdorferi antibodies are associated with return to health following acute infection.

Delaney, Shannon L.

Shannon Delaney, MD, MA Instructor in Psychiatry Director, Child and Adolescent Research and Evaluation at the Lyme & Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center Columbia University Medical Center New York, NY https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/profile/shannon-l-delaney-md

Borrelia Miyamotoi Exposure in a Clinical Population

Dr. Delaney is a neuropsychiatrist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center who is co-investigator with Dr. Fallon on studies of adults and children with Lyme disease. She completed her NIH-sponsored research fellowship at Columbia University in 2017. Her clinical research has focused on immune and infectious contributions to psychiatric disease, especially psychosis in children and young adults. A member of our team for over three years, she has recently joined an initiative to establish a PANDAS/PANS clinical assessment, treatment, and research center with experts from the Columbia Departments of Neurology, Pathology, and Psychiatry. This PANS/PANDAS initiative will allow children and young adults with complex neuropsychiatric presentations to be evaluated for a variety of infectious and immune causes of neuropsychiatric disorders.

Conference Lecture Summary

The first recognized cases of Borrelia Miyamotoi disease (BMD) in North America were reported in the northeastern United States in 2013, but much about the clinical features of this disease remains unknown. Our Second Opinion Evaluation Service at Columbia University Medical Center evaluates patients with persistent symptoms who have a history of treatment for possible or definite Lyme disease. Since the summer of 2017, we assessed 52 patients for B. miyamoti antibodies (using an ELISA based on the recombinant glycerophosphodiester phosphodiesterase (rGlpQ) protein) through a specialty laboratory in Massachusetts. 14 of the 52 (27%) were positive for rGlpQ IgG antibodies. In a preliminary exploration to assess whether a history of infection with B miyamatoi alters the clinical profile among persistently ill patients, we compared individuals representing subgroups: a) history of well- documented past Lyme disease (Lyme positive) and BM positive; b) Lyme positive but BM negative; and c) Lyme negative and BM negative. Results on standardized self-report assessments (somatic, behavioral, functioning) completed by all patients will be contrasted and reported. Additionally, results from comprehensive neurocognitive testing on a subset of these patients will be reported.