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We're discussing summer health this week on Healthwatch. Lyme disease has become a summer hazard in much of the United States. It's carried by ticks, and people are usually exposed during outdoor activities in infested areas. While much of the research on Lyme disease has focused on the infection in mammals, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have learned a lot about how the Lyme bacterium grows inside ticks.
The Lyme bacteria live in the blood of infected mammals and in the guts of ticks. The UT Southwestern researchers found that a protein in the bacteria responds to blood when the tick feeds, and that's when the bacteria flourish enough to move into the tick's salivary glands to be spread by biting.
Dr. Michael Norgard, UT Southwestern's chairman of microbiology, says understanding this could one day give scientists a way to eradicate the bacteria by disrupting its life cycle.
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June 2005
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