Bay Area Lyme Foundation Announces Finalists of “Lyme Innovation” Hackathon

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:
Tara DiMilia, 908-947-0500, tara.dimilia@TMstrat.com

Bay Area Lyme Foundation Announces Finalists of “Lyme Innovation” Hackathon

Event brings together research from other therapeutic areas and disciplines to collaborate in development of solutions

Cambridge, MA, June 24, 2016 – Bay Area Lyme Foundation, collaborating with the Spaulding Rehabilitation Network’s Dean Center for Tick Borne Illness, Harvard Medical School Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, MIT Hacking Medicine, University of California, Berkeley, and the Veterans Affairs Center for Innovation, today announced the five finalists of Lyme Innovation, the first ever Hackathon for Lyme disease.  More than 100 scientists, clinicians, researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors from several US states registered for this event to brainstorm solutions for Lyme disease, a potentially devastating condition newly infecting 329,000 people each year.

“Collaboration is the key to solving the myriad of challenges of Lyme disease, and we were excited to have the participation of so many researchers new to Lyme research,” said Wendy Adams, Science Committee, Bay Area Lyme Foundation.  “It has been exciting to see such a wide range of expertise and enthusiasm come together to focus on solutions for this serious disease.”

Hope, Faith, and Perseverance — How One Family Overcame Lyme Disease

By Bay Area Lyme

Eliza Hemenway_HS_312Bay Area author and noted documentary filmmaker Eliza Hemenway recently turned her journalistic eye toward her own family to document a notably personal and tryingly poignant story about her family’s trials with Lyme disease and the baffling enigma that surrounds the illness and its treatment. Her daughter, Katherine, just seven years old when infected, suffered for years before successfully being diagnosed. And even after diagnosis, the family struggled to get the care they needed.

“I am a Bay Area mother who wrote Paris in Oakland to be a story of hope and encouragement to the Lyme community, something I desperately needed when my daughter was first diagnosed and I was trying to understand the controversies and confusion surrounding Lyme. 

Experts Hack for Lyme Disease Solutions in Boston and Berkeley

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:
Tara DiMilia, 908-947-0500, tara.dimilia@TMstrat.com

Experts Hack for Lyme Disease Solutions in Boston and Berkeley

Bay Area Lyme Foundation Supports the First Hackathon for Lyme Disease to Inspire Innovation

Silicon Valley, CA, April 18, 2016— To inspire innovation to help solve the challenges of Lyme disease, Bay Area Lyme Foundation, collaborating with the Spaulding Rehabilitation Network’s Dean Center for Tick Borne Illness, Harvard Medical School Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, MIT Hacking Medicine, University of California, Berkeley, and the Veterans Affairs Center for Innovation, is supporting Lyme Innovation, the first ever Hackathon for Lyme disease, a potentially devastating condition newly infecting 329,000 people each year. Scientists, clinicians, researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors from both U.S. coasts participated in this innovative event, which kicked off this weekend, and will continue in Cambridge June 17 – 19, at the Microsoft Nerd Center.

California Strains of Lyme Bacteria May Survive Antibiotic Treatment, According to New Study

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:
Tara DiMilia, 908-947-0500, tara.dimilia@TMstrat.com

California Strains of Lyme Bacteria May Survive Antibiotic Treatment, According to New Study

This new study funded by Bay Area Lyme Foundation identifies 20 FDA-approved compounds that are more effective in inhibiting persistent Lyme bacteria than standard treatment

Silicon Valley, CA, April 6, 2016—A laboratory study published today, funded by the Bay Area Lyme Foundation, is the first study to demonstrate that strains of Lyme bacteria present in California ticks are able to form persister bacteria, which do not respond well to treatment.  The study is also the first to identify FDA-approved therapies that may be more effective in inhibiting these specific strains of persister bacteria in the lab than doxycycline, the most commonly prescribed treatment for Lyme disease. The study was conducted by Stanford School of Medicine researchers and published in the Open Access publication Drug Design, Development and Therapy. View full study here: http://www.dovepress.com/articles.php?article_id=26319

Recovering From Lyme: A New Perspective

By Bay Area Lyme

Theresa Wiles_312Theresa Wiles is a PSYCH-K® facilitator in Northern California. Her work involves helping patients to leverage their subconscious beliefs for positive outcomes. “Changing our thought patterns changes our ‘Field’ and we begin to create the reality we envision for ourselves. We start to act more intuitively, we experience more serendipity in our lives. The Universe and our subconscious mind starts assisting us in creating the life we envision for ourselves.”

Here, in this guest post, she shares a perspective about how these techniques might assist in the healing of long-term Lyme disease.

Can We “Hack” Our Way to Some New Solutions for Lyme?

By Bay Area Lyme

Reflections from a Promising Dialogue at the AAAS Conference in Washington, DC, November 17-18

by Lia Gaertner, BAL Science Committee

AAAS_Logo and magSome weeks ago, two members of the Bay Area Lyme Foundation Science Committee, Wendy Adams and Lia Gaertner, attended a leadership symposium in Washington, DC, sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and entitled, “Innovations-X: Rising Above the Politics for Progress in Science.”  The AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society, with more than 125,000 individual and institutional members, and the publisher of Science magazine. Its mission is “to advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people.” At this event, there were three “wicked problems” discussed over two days: climate change, global/mobile health, and Lyme disease.  This blog, written by Lia Gaertner, will focus only on the Lyme portion of the conference.

Alternative Treatments for Lyme Disease

By Bay Area Lyme

KP StollerBy KP Stoller, MD, FACHM 

Dr. KP Stoller MD, is a Fellow of the American College of Hyperbaric Medicine (FACHM) and co-founder of the Hypberbaric Oxygen Clinic of San Francicsco (HBOSF). Having treated patients with Lyme disease for more than two decades, Dr. Stoller is an advocate for Hyperbaric Oxygen treatment (HBOT) and other alternative therapies for patients battling post-treatment Lyme disease (PTLD). He wrote to Bay Area Lyme to share his experience and expertise.

(Note: Bay Area Lyme Foundation is a research and informational organization, not a medical entity. The Foundation does not advocate or endorse any particular treatment or clinical approach but is devoted to the sharing of information and the facilitation of new research in hopes that better diagnostics tools and therapies can be discovered. Please consult your physician or clinician for more information about specific or individual treatments.)

Manganese Dependence

“In 2013, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute discovered that the Lyme-causing Borrelia burgdorferi organism is manganese-dependent, because it substitutes manganese where almost all other organisms use iron for survival. By using manganese, the Borrelia is assisted in evading the immune system, which typically responds to foreign pathogens by starving them of iron. Further, manganese is important for the human body (helping to monitor blood sugar levels, supporting production of collagen for tissue repair, and even helping the central nervous system to function properly) and there is no easy way to shut down the manganese supply to these organisms.