CAMBRIDGE, MASS. (WHDH) - Tiny insects are spreading a devastating disease. Scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) believe they’ve discovered something that could help stop Lyme disease before it starts.
“The right side of my body went numb. I felt disoriented. My heart was racing,” said Brandi Dean.
Dean thought what she was experiencing was a stroke but it was actually the start of a 10-year battle with Lyme disease.
“It’s a devastating illness, emotionally, physically, and financially,” she said.
The illness began with a tick bite that spread bacteria throughout her body.
“I was really struggling to just survive every day and to take care of my kids,” said Dean.
Brandi pushed through muscle pain, dizziness and exhaustion so severe she couldn’t walk down the stairs.
“I would literally scoot down each stair. I had very little energy to walk,” said Dean. “It was frightening at that time.”
Doctor Sam Telford, a professor of infectious disease and global health at Tufts University, has studied ticks for more than 40-years. He says mice are a perfect host for several diseases ticks can spread.
“They’re very good hosts for the bacteria. They suffer no disease from having the bacteria,” said Telford. “They pass it back-and-forth and us humans are collateral damage.”
Mice carry the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. When ticks feed on the blood of a mouse, the infection can transfer. If that same tick bites a human, the bacteria can get into the person’s bloodstream .
“We want to disrupt the natural cycle of the bacteria,” said Telford. “We don’t want to disrupt anything else.”
Scientists at MIT working on a project called “Mice Against Ticks” say they’ve developed a way to alter mice DNA. Their discovery can make rodents immune to Lyme disease.
“If you immunize all the mice in a way that’s heritable so that their descendants are also immune,” said Kevin Esvelt.
Doctor Kevin Esvelt and his team plan to study the genetically modified mice on a remote island off the Massachusetts coast. They’ll test whether the science works in the wild.
“On an island if you introduce mouse copies of the resistant strain to the local population, it’s going to stay there. Most of the mice are going to be immune and that’s going to remain the case for probably decades,” said Esvelt.
If the field tests work, the research could move to larger trials on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard – two Lyme disease hot spots.
“They are very supportive. They understand they have a problem. Their mind is opened about ways to deal with that problem,” said Esvelt.
If the study is successful, genetically modified mice could be introduced into other Massachusetts communities within the next decade.
“It’s definitely a step in the right direction and a path forward and it definitely gives me hope,” said Dean.
Researchers also believe the same approach could help combat dozens of other rodent born diseases.
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