image: Eric Siegel is a Ph.D. student in microbiology at UMass Amherst.
Credit: UMass Amherst
Eric Siegel, a Ph.D. student in microbiologist Stephen Rich’s Laboratory of Medical Zoology and at the UMass Amherst-based New England Center of Excellence in Vector-borne Diseases (NEWVEC), has been awarded a grant from the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) to continue his efforts to reduce Lyme disease.
“The goal of this study is to look at a new therapeutic target for the bacterium [Borrelia burgdorferi] that causes Lyme disease,” Siegel says. “And the ultimate objective is to develop an oral drug that may be delivered to mice in nature, reducing the number of mice that are infected with the bacterium at a given time. By doing that, we can reduce the number of ticks that feed on mice and that are infected, and then fewer ticks that feed on us will be infected.”
In the wild, various species of mice serve as a host for Borrelia. In turn, larval and nymphal Ixodes scapularis, or deer ticks, feed on infected mice and then become vectors for the bacteria as well. As adults, female deer ticks – the ones that are disease vectors – prefer a long blood meal on deer, their namesake, or other animals larger than mice.
Ultimately, Siegel says, this approach might have a broader application. “It could be a Borrelia-specific drug target for companion animals and people in addition to the environmental use to reduce the proportion of reservoir hosts that are infected,” he says.
The initial grant for his project – Targeting Borrelia burgdorferi’s Inosine Monophosphate Dehydrogenase (IMPDH/GuaB) for Lyme Disease Control: Foundational Studies on Therapeutic Testing Infrastructure and Risk Assessment Applications – is €20,000 (about $22,000), with a possible second stage award of €50,000(about $54,000). Siegel’s study published last October in the journal Microorganisms provided preliminary data for his ongoing research. UMass student co-authors were Connor Rich and Sanchana Saravanan.
Stephen Rich, executive director of NEWVEC, emphasized that Siegel’s award represents a rare achievement. “This honor is restricted to early career scientists, usually those within a few years of having completed their Ph.D.,” Rich says. “Eric is in the second year of his Ph.D. program, so it’s quite an accomplishment. Moreover, he conceived and wrote this grant independently, which is very uncommon.”
Siegel will use the grant to conduct a pilot study targeting the bacteria’s guaB gene, which is necessary for Borrelia to replicate in mammals. His team is testing GuaB inhibitors, which could prevent infection from taking hold or possibly one day treat Lyme disease in people.
“We have two objectives,” Siegel says. “One is to optimize a culture system to test new drugs that target the GuaB enzyme. The second aim is to characterize the expression of the gene as an innovative, molecular indicator of infected tick feeding time.”