Some good news for the Lyme disease community

This week Invisible International shines a light on recent progress in the Lyme disease world with 10 reasons to be thankful for the patient advocates and researchers dedicated to reducing the suffering of those with Lyme and other tick-borne diseases.

It’s easy to dwell on the negative with Lyme disease. Forty-seven years after discovery of the first case cluster in Lyme, Conn., there are still no reliable tests or effective vaccines on the market. Among those patients who are treated promptly, about a third go on to suffer from persistent symptoms.

But it’s important to keep things in perspective. Incremental progress is being made, albeit slowly. There’s a growing acknowledgment of the magnitude of the Lyme problem in the medical system, the government, and the media. New diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics are finally working their way out of basic research labs and into clinical validation studies. Invisible’s mission is to accelerate progress on all these fronts.

Here are 10 signs of progress for the Lyme disease community:

⁕ The CDC ups the annual Lyme disease cases to 476,000
After analyzing medical insurance claims data on Lyme disease in 2021, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention upped their public-facing estimate of 300,000 annual cases to 476,000 per year. “Our results underscore the need for accurate diagnosis and improved prevention,” says the CDC. This updated estimate provides a larger “market size” that may incentivize commercial interests to develop better diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics.

⁕ New WHO ICD-11 Lyme disease diagnostics codes
The World Health Organization (WHO) added 15 new medical diagnostic codes for Lyme disease (aka borreliosis) complications, effective on January 1, 2022. Over time, these codes will provide patients with more avenues for medical insurance reimbursement and will enable researchers to better track and analyze Lyme disease complications, treatments, and outcomes. On the international front, the European Union is now requiring mandatory reporting of neuroborreliosis, a move that will help with research funding, prevention, and disease tracking.

⁕ More patient participation in the U.S. research agenda
Patients’ voices are starting to be heard. Since 2017, patient advocates in the HHS Tick-Borne Disease Working Group (TBDWG) have been effective in educating Congress and researchers on the urgent need for better diagnostics and treatments. MyLymeData, a patient information database managed by LymeDisease.org, has quantified time-to-diagnosis, common symptoms, and treatment outcomes, providing a big-data window into the needs of patients. Lastly, the Center for Lyme Action, founded in 2019, organized educational sessions within the US federal government to facilitate the passage of a new appropriations bill that nearly doubled the federal funding for Lyme Disease to $108M in FY21.

⁕ Strong evidence of active Lyme infections after treatment
A recent spate of research studies show that Lyme disease symptoms can persist after recommended treatment protocols, challenging the widely held belief that Lyme disease can always be cured with a short course of antibiotics. Acknowledgement that chronic Lyme is a real medical condition is the first step in justifying the development of more effective treatments for both early and late stages of the disease. A summary of this evidence can be found in here.

⁕ Recognition of the dangers of mixed tick-borne infections
When several university labs started gene sequencing and cataloging all the disease-causing microbes inside ticks, they discovered that polymicrobial infections transmitted through a single tick bite are far more common than previously thought. In the U.S., there are at least 18 disease-causing bacteria and viruses carried by ticks. And new studies have found that the standard U.S. Lyme testing doesn’t detect the newly recognized Lyme-like bacterial species spreading in the West and Midwest. This new information is another reason to design better screening tests and treatment guidelines for mixed tick-borne diseases. Read more here, here, and here.

⁕ Invisible International’s free medical education courses on tick- and vector-borne diseases
Invisible International’s physician education platform is the world’s first accredited curriculum focused on tick- and vector-borne diseases. These virtual courses are available at no cost to medical professionals and patients. Taught by leading experts in tick/vector-borne diseases, this platform is accelerating the movement of the latest diagnostics and treatment advice to the frontlines of medical care. New courses are added monthly and are accredited by the American Academy of Family Physicians for AMA credit. This effort is funded by the Montecalvo Family Foundation. To help Invisible integrate these courses into medical school curriculums across the U.S. and abroad, click here.

⁕ New therapeutic/treatment options on the horizon
A relatively new technology called “high throughput drug screening” enables researchers to place Lyme bacteria in an array of tiny wells and expose them to thousands of FDA-approved chemical compounds and drugs to see which ones are best at killing the microbes. The best and safest drug candidates are then retested in live mice, and, eventually, in humans. This process saves the time and money associated with large human clinical trials and speeds up the regulatory approval process. 
 
⁕ The LymeX Diagnostics Prize
The weak link in reducing the public health burden of tick-borne illnesses is the lack of fast, cheap, and accurate diagnostics. Lyme treatment is often delayed because the screening tests aren’t reliable in the first month after infection and not everyone produces or notices a bullseye rash. In the later stages of the disease, antibody testing can be unreliable in the sickest patients, those whose antibody production may be hobbled by concurrent infections or a weak immune system. LymeX, a public-private partnership, will be offering large prizes to incentivize the development of better Lyme diagnostics. This effort is part of the $25 million public-private partnership between the  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation. Invisible is joining the field-wide effort to support new diagnostic development by organizing a “Tick-borne Illness Diagnostics Development Incubator”, a yearlong collaborative forum designed to help bring these diagnostics solutions to the market faster. This effort is funded by the Lovell Family Healthcare Foundation.

⁕ Studies revealing the suicide/mental health risks of Lyme and co-infections
In a large retrospective study of nearly 7 million subjects, U.S. and Danish researchers report that patients who received a hospital diagnosis of Lyme disease—inpatient, outpatient, or at the ER—had a 28 percent higher rate of mental disorders and were twice as likely to have attempted suicide post-infection, compared to individuals without the diagnosis. Studies like these show that undertreated Lyme disease can lead to serious mental illness, and that it should be a differential diagnosis for certain patients with sudden-onset depression, suicidal thoughts, and other mental disorders. Read more here, here, and here.

⁕ A breakthrough in public awareness of the tick-borne disease problem
A growing number of mainstream journalists, writers, and professionals have gone public with their personal stories on the emotional, financial, and societal toll of tick-borne illnesses. This is an essential step in mitigating the social stigma, medical gaslighting, and myth that Lyme disease is easy to diagnose, treat, and cure. Notable new additions to this genre include “Chronic,” “The Invisible Kingdom,” “The Deep Places,” “What Lurks in the Woods,” and “Bitten” (my book). Invisible’s “Storytelling for Change” initiative aims to continue this momentum with a team of clinicians, researchers, and writers collaborating to produce mass media stories that explain emerging science and promote understanding of the suffering and social injustices laid on families dealing with invisible illness.

Help Invisible International do more to create positive change and scientific advancement for the Lyme disease community. Make a gift today.

For weekly updates on all things related to Lyme disease and other invisible vector-borne diseases, sign up for Invisible International’s newsletter here: https://invisible.international/newsletter/

Update on the Tick-borne Illness Diagnostics Incubator

Invisible International is supporting six teams in its “Tick-borne Illness Diagnostics Development Incubator,” a yearlong collaborative forum designed to help bring better diagnostics solutions to the market faster. This month, organized teams of researchers, diagnostics companies, patients, government representatives, and industry funders have been holding regular meetings to discuss needs, regulatory/technology roadblocks, and marketing strategies. The diagnostics companies participating include R.E.D. Laboratories, Flightpath Biosciences, Galaxy Diagnostics, TickPlex/Tezted, IGeneX, and LabCorp.

One of the new players in this space is a Belgium-based company, R.E.D. Laboratories. Their novel “Phelix Phage” Borrelia detection method (Patent WO2018083491A1) was co-discovered by Jinyu Shan, PhD, University of Leicester; Professor Martha Clokie, University of Leicester; and Dr. Louis Teulières, Phelix R&D. This test can used on blood, urine, biopsies, or ticks to detect the presence of specific phages, spider-like viruses that parasitically prey on targeted Borrelia bacteria. The phages are transmitted with Borrelia during a tick bite, and they can only survive if their bacterial hosts are alive. Detecting these specialized phages in blood or urine provides direct evidence of active Borrelia infections in both early- and late-stage patients. And preliminary studies are promising, showing a >90% sensitivity and 100% specificity, a huge improvement over the two-tiered testing used today.

Thus far, the lab has developed diagnostics for the Borrelia sensu lato group (the 18 Borrelia species that cause Lyme borreliosis), the relapsing fever Borrelia group, Borrelia miyamotoi, (a recently discovered, genetically distinct member of the relapsing fever group), and a broad range of rickettsias. They’re also using this approach to develop tests for other tick-borne pathogens.

Tanja Mijatovic, PhD, the Chief Scientific Officer of R.E.D. Laboratories, said, “After more than two years of using the Phelix Phage Borrelia test, we’ve discovered that far more patients (primarily late stage) have tested positive for the relapsing fever group (B. miyamotoi, B. hermsii, etc.) than the Borrelia sensu lato group.”

This raises an interesting scientific question — might patients with persistent Lyme symptoms have active, undetected infections caused by microbes that no one is looking for?

R.E.D. Labs is currently looking for partnerships with health-care facilities and practitioners involved in infectious diseases, to help challenge and validate their tests. Inquiries can be directed to Dr. Mijatovic: tmijatovic@redlabs.be

In future weeks, Invisible will profile other incubator teams and participants.

***
Invisible’s incubator is designed to complement the
LymeX Tick-Borne Disease Innovation Accelerator, which will be offering research prizes for the development for better early Lyme diagnostics over three phases. [LymeX is funded with $25 million from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation and co-managed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).] The Invisible Incubator is helping diagnostic companies gain a competitive edge in this competition, by making it easy to engage with clinical, lab, and research collaborators, and by participating in forums where past and emerging technologies will be discussed.

This incubator program is a component of Invisible’s Lovell Innovation Platform, funded by a trailblazing donation by Mark and Eileen Lovell. Thanks to their generous support, Invisible International is delivering programs that will change the landscape of tick-borne illness and other invisible illnesses through community action, education, and research.

Lyme testing: The good, the bad, and the ugly

In the free medical education course, “Serologic testing in Lyme disease,” Elizabeth L. Maloney, MD, a Minnesota family physician and tick-borne disease educator, reviews published studies that evaluate current Lyme disease tests and discusses how these tests should be used in diagnosing patients.

I think many experts would agree with me on this point: The United States’ Lyme disease testing strategy is confusing, time consuming, subject to human error, and urgently in need of a technology upgrade. The quickest way to get up to speed on the good, the bad, and the ugly of Lyme testing is to watch Dr. Elizabeth Maloney’s accredited medical education course on the topic. With clarity and precision, Dr. Maloney explains the specificity, sensitivity, and accuracy of the most widely used Lyme tests, discussing how these tests should be used in a clinical setting and illuminating areas for improvement for the next generation of diagnostic approaches.

The underlying message of the lecture is that we can do better, and this is the reason Invisible International is launching a “Tick-borne Illness Diagnostics Development Incubator,” a yearlong collaborative forum designed to bring together teams of multidisciplinary innovators to look at diagnostic protocols, processes, and tests anew, with an eye to accelerating better diagnostic solutions. In this forum, we’ll bring together researchers, diagnostics companies, patient representatives, government representatives, and industry funders to brainstorm on ways to remove roadblocks to innovation. We’ll also feature lectures covering areas such as concept seed funding, getting through the regulatory pipeline, and fundamentals of low-cost diagnostics design.

This incubator is designed to complement the LymeX Tick-Borne Disease Innovation Accelerator, which will be offering prizes for the development for better early Lyme diagnostics. [Lyme X is funded with $25 million from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation and co-managed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).] The Invisible Incubator is way to gain a competitive edge in this competition, by making it easy to engage with clinical, lab, and collaborators, and by participating in forums where past and emerging technologies will be discussed.

If you’d like to join the effort to improve Lyme diagnostics, please watch this educational primer on Lyme testing, then join us Saturday, October 30, 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. EST.* Registering at https://www.hack.invisible.international/ (*This presentation will be recorded and posted on Invisible’s website after the event.)

This continuing medical education course was funded by the Montecalvo Platform for Tick-Borne Illness Education, through Invisible International, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation dedicated to reducing the suffering associated with invisible illnesses and social marginalization through innovation, education, and data-driven change projects. You can sign up to receive news and updates at https://invisible.international/mission

Other related courses: Basic principles of diagnostic testing7 years of blood-based Lyme disease testingCase studies in early Lyme disease.

Photo credit: Pollyana Ventura, iStock

The state of tick-borne illness diagnostics: Learn, engage, and accelerate

Invisible International is launching a yearlong “Tick-borne Illness Diagnostics Development Incubator,” starting with an online briefing, “The State of Tick-Borne Illness Diagnostics: Learn, Engage, Accelerate.”When: Saturday, October 30, 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. EST.
Registration: https://www.hack.invisible.international/

The weak link in reducing the public health burden of Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses is the lack of fast, cheap, and reliable diagnostic approaches. Early Lyme diagnoses are often delayed because the Lyme screening tests aren’t reliable in the first month after infection and not everyone produces or notices a bullseye rash. In the later stages of the disease, antibody testing can be unreliable in the sickest patients, those whose antibody production may be hobbled by concurrent infections or a weak immune system. There’s also no simple diagnostic roadmap to follow when multiple tick-borne pathogens may be involved.

This briefing will mark the start of Invisible International’s “Tick-borne Illness Diagnostics Development Incubator,” a yearlong collaborative forum designed to bring together teams of multidisciplinary innovators to look at diagnostic protocols, processes, and tests anew, with an eye to accelerating better solutions. We’ll bring together researchers, diagnostics companies, patient representatives, government representatives, and industry funders to brainstorm on ways to remove roadblocks to innovation. We’ll also feature lectures covering areas such as concept seed funding, getting through the regulatory pipeline, and fundamentals of low-cost diagnostics design.

This incubator is designed to complement the LymeX Diagnostics Moonshot, which will be offering prizes for the development for better early Lyme diagnostics over three phases. [Lyme X is funded with $25 million from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation and co-managed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Competition details will be posted later this year at Challenge.gov. ] The Invisible Incubator is way to gain a competitive edge in this competition, by making it easy to engage with clinical, lab, and collaborators, and by participating in forums where past and emerging technologies will be discussed.

The “The State of Tick-Borne Illness Diagnostics” briefing will feature:

Introductions: 

Mark Lovell, PhD, former Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer at ImPACT Applications, Inc.; Chair of Invisible’s Lovell Innovation Platform and Advisory Board

Valerie Montecalvo, President, Bayshore Recycling; Chair of Invisible’s Montecalvo Platform for Tick-Borne Illness Education and Strategic Initiatives

Keynote: The human cost of poor diagnostics
Nicole Bell, executive, entrepreneur, and author of What Lurks in the Woods: Struggle and Hope in the Midst of Chronic Illness, A Memoir

·Demystifying commercialization

Rhonda Shrader, Invisible International Innovation Chair; Executive Director, Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship, UC Berkeley; and NSF I-Corps, Bay Area Node Director

Amanda Elam, CEO/Cofounder of Galaxy Diagnostics, Inc. and Entrepreneurship Research Fellow at Babson College

Why patient input is important

Emily Lovell, Invisible International Advisory Board and computer science researcher/educator

Perspectives from the diagnostic trenches

Representatives from three specialty labs will share their take on today’s diagnostic technologies today and what’s needed in the future

Invisible International

Nev Zubcevik, DO, CMO, Call for better diagnostic tools from the clinical trenches

Laura Lott, CEO, Learn, engage, accelerate: Why your team should join the challenge

The “Tick-borne Disease Diagnostics Innovation Incubator” is a component of Invisible’s Lovell Innovation Platform, funded by a trailblazing donation by Mark and Eileen Lovell. Thanks to their generous support, Invisible International is delivering programs that will change the landscape of tick-borne illness and other invisible illnesses through community action, education, and research.

When: Saturday, October 30, 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. EST.*
Registration: https://www.hack.invisible.international/

*This presentation will be recorded and posted on Invisible’s website after the event

Lyme advocates weigh-in on research priorities at HHS-LymeX workshop

Invisible’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Nevena Zubcevik, joins other Lyme patient advocates in setting priorities for the largest public-private research initiative launched since Lyme disease was discovered.

Last October, the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation announced that they would donate $25 million to the LymeX Innovation Accelerator, a research prize competition to develop better tick-borne disease diagnostics. The competition recently entered its next phase, the collection of ideas from disease stakeholders — patient representatives, the government, academic medicine, and industry — to help define the prize guidelines.

To facilitate this process, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) hosted a LymeX Roundtable Webinar on April 28, 2021, which featured presentations and workshops with key stakeholders.

Dr. Nevena Zubcevik, Invisible’s Chief Medical Officer, was the workshop’s first lightning talk speaker, and in her presentation (starting at minute 37:43), she succinctly summarized why these prizes are so desperately needed: Only about 1 percent of the National Institutes of Health’s Lyme disease research budget (2015 thru 2019) went towards exploring better treatments for the nearly 500,000 Americans who get Lyme disease each year. Her emphatic message to the audience — We need more patient-focused solutions to bring relief to the millions suffering from tick-borne diseases today.

Invisible is working to remedy the treatment gap by launching the Tick Bytes Clinical Data Research Platform. This multi-institutional clinical data repository will provide quality de-identified tick-borne illness patient data to researchers. Researchers can then mine this data using advanced biostatistical methods to discover symptom profiles for mixed infections and treatment regimens that work. With this precision medicine approach, more quality evidence will reach physicians, insurers, and government. This, in turn, will improve diagnostics and treatment options, leading to better outcomes, insurance coverage, and government funding. Invisible is currently raising funds to launch 10 data collection sites at research institutions, community clinics, and hospitals across the nation. To learn more about how you can help, go to: https://invisible.international/give

The Cohen’s $25 million prize fund represents a whopping 50-percent boost to the 2021 NIH Lyme-related research budget, and, most importantly, it allocates more funds to urgently needed early diagnostic tools, since in the first three weeks after infection, the standard tests only detect Lyme disease 29 to 40 percent of the time.

For an overview of the devastating impact of poor testing and treatment options on Lyme patients, read the new LymeX publication, “The Health+ Lyme Disease Human-Centered Design.” To join the LymeX online community, go to: https://lymex.crowdicity.com/

Invisible International is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation dedicated to reducing the suffering associated with invisible illnesses and social marginalization through innovation, education, and change projects. To donate or to learn more about our many programs to reduce the impact of tick-borne illness, visit the website: https://invisible.international