Syracuse, N.Y. – Two Central New York state universities are spending millions on a laboratory and recruiting national experts to combat tick-borne diseases that are on the rise.
Upstate Medical University this spring recruited an entire six-person laboratory team from Texas to run the planned $6 million laboratory. The university also recently hired two doctors from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research near Washington, D.C., to study and treat Lyme and other infectious diseases.
And SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry three years ago hired a tick biology expert, Brian Leydet, from Louisiana to study why ticks are spreading and what can be done to control them. The search committee included a faculty member from Upstate.
“Tick-borne diseases are fairly new to the area, and there are new ones coming,” Leydet said. “We need to be ahead of those, and this collaboration puts us ahead of the game.”
Upstate recently received a $6 million SUNY 2020 grant to develop and build the vector-borne disease laboratory. Vectors are the bugs, including ticks and mosquitoes, that transmit disease. The biggest emphasis will be on the black-legged tick, which can carry Lyme, Powassan and several other diseases. While Powassan is still very rare, about half of adult black-legged ticks in New York state carry the Lyme bacteria. Black-legged ticks are commonly known as deer ticks.
The lab will be a Level 3, equipped to safely work with one of the emerging and deadly tick-borne diseases, Powassan virus. There are four levels of laboratories; Level 4 is reserved for deadly pathogens such as Ebola.
The lab is expected to open next spring in the university’s Institute for Human Performance building.
Upstate officials scoured the country looking for the right person to run the lab, and found him at the University of Texas, Galveston, medical center. Not only did Saravanan Thangamani accept the offer to move to Syracuse, but he brought along his entire five-person lab team.
One of those team members, research scientist and Houston native Meghan Hermance, said the team was drawn by the planned laboratory.
“The entire lab remained intact and followed our boss here because we see the opportunities in the new facility,” said Hermance, who earned her Ph.D. studying how ticks transmit the Powassan virus.
While that lab is being built, Thangamani and his lab team are collecting ticks for testing, and conducting other research. The lab will also test -- for free -- ticks that are mailed in from New York state.
Dr. Mantosh Dewan, Upstate’s interim president, said it was crucial to bring in a top tick-borne disease scientist to oversee the research in the lab.
“I did not want a beautiful piece of equipment and not have the right people to run it,” Dewan said. “We’re hoping to become a national center for tick-borne diseases, and we need to have cutting-edge research and cutting-edge clinicians before we can lay claim to being a center of excellence.”
To help those efforts, Upstate also brought two doctors from the Walter Reed institute:
* Stephen Thomas, chief of Upstate’s infectious disease division and director of the Institute for Global Health and Translational Science. At Reed, Thomas lead the research into the Zika virus and was director of the viral diseases branch.
* Kristopher Paolino, an infectious disease expert who treats patients at Upstate’s clinic. While at Reed, Paolino helped develop vaccines for Ebola and malaria. He grew up in the Hudson Valley, the epicenter of Lyme disease in New York.
Thomas said the emphasis on tick-borne diseases meets the college’s mission to serve the health needs of Central New York.
“Our job is to identify and help solve the problems of Central New York, and tick-borne diseases were a void,” Thomas said. “That’s why we are doing this tick-borne disease initiative, to bring in the best and brightest and to create big teams of teams to go after the problem.”
The two Syracuse colleges are part of a bigger team in Upstate New York known as the SUNY Lyme Working Group, which includes researchers and doctors from Cornell and Binghamton universities. Cornell operates the Northeast Regional Center for Excellence in Vector Borne Diseases and has established a Lyme and tick-borne disease surveillance program in the veterinary school.
Lyme disease affects dogs and other mammals. It is transmitted through the bite of a tick after the tick picks up the bacteria from another animal.
ESF studies the biology and habitat of ticks, and Leydet will help lead and expand that research. He was familiar with Upstate New York after doing post-doctoral research at the Trudeau Institute in Saranac Lake.
“Brian really understands tick biology and how ticks interact with the environment,” said Chris Nomura, ESF’s vice president for research. “Because of the local and regional impacts (of Lyme disease), his research could help reduce the risk for the population in Central New York.”
