MCB Seminar Series: Dr. Melanie Wills

Dear Colleagues,

Please join us as we welcome Dr. Melanie Wills from the G. Magnotta Lyme Disease Research Lab as part of MCB's Seminar Speaker Series on Wednesday, March 11th, 2020.

Seminar time: 10:30 - 11:30 AM
Room: SSC 2315

All are welcome to attend. Please see poster for further details.

Sincerely,
MCB Distinguished Speaker Seminar Committee

Title:

Untangling Lyme Disease: Navigating Pathogens, Proteins, and Politics to Mitigate an Escalating Public Health Crisis

Abstract:

Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne infection in the northern hemisphere, where it poses an escalating threat to the health of Canadians. Despite over four decades of investigation into the disease and the causative pathogen, Borrelia burgdorferi, fundamental knowledge gaps remain that impact diagnostic testing, treatment, and outcome, and render Lyme one of the most polarized and politicized diseases of the 21st century. The G. Magnotta Lab was established to help bridge these gaps using basic and patient-centred research that translates to clinical practice. Our multi-pronged strategy includes community-based studies that are generating new epidemiological, biochemical, and microbiological insight into controversial and ill-defined patient cohorts, host-pathogen modeling and diagnostic platform design work that has identified novel approaches for detecting Borrelia in clinical specimens, and comprehensive omics-level interrogation of diverse Lyme Borrelia in search of biomarkers and mechanistic clues. This seminar will therefore explore road-blocks to progress, and the development of an interdisciplinary research program to confront challenges of biology and medicine.

Dr. Melanie Wills G. Magnotta Research Team Profile Page