In 2012, the San Francisco Bay Area was not considered a hot spot for Lyme. People who got bitten by ticks were told that there was “No Lyme in California,” and that ticks here were not infected.
Yet friends Laure Woods and Bonnie Crater each had family members or close connections who had been diagnosed with Lyme disease. They decided that this indeed was a quandary and required more investigation. They called on the expertise of their friends Kathleen O’Rourke and Carin Rollins for ideas as to how to solve this puzzle. Leveraging a combination of Silicon Valley chutzpah, biology backgrounds, and connections to Stanford University, the group decided to search out scientists to conduct a research project to test if there WERE infected ticks in the local hills and woodlands. Serendipitously, they found a couple of young tick ecologists, Nate Nieto, PhD, working at Northern Arizona University, and Dan Salkeld, PhD, who at the time was with Stanford University. Over a picnic table on campus, the friends persuaded the two scientists to collect ticks from trails in nearby Bay Area parks and test the ticks for the disease-causing bacteria. Laure and Bonnie filed the necessary paperwork, and Kathleen hosted the very first event in our new Portola Valley office. Bay Area Lyme Foundation was born.
The resulting tick study proved unequivocally that there were Western black-legged ticks (Ixodes pacificus) in the Bay Area open spaces, infected with Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that cause Lyme disease in humans. The study gained wide attention and launched Bay Area Lyme Foundation into the national scientific spotlight. After growing the founding group by a few more Lyme community experts, they all agreed that the mission of the foundation would be to make Lyme disease easy to diagnose and simple to cure.
Fundamentally changing the foundation’s prospects, the LaureL Foundation believed so profoundly in the mission that they made an initial five-year grant to cover 100% of operational costs and ensured that all donations to the foundation would go to Lyme research grants. In 2013, our full-time executive director, Linda Giampa, was hired to lead the vision and strategy of this fledgling foundation. With a background in Silicon Valley startups and as a former tech CEO, Linda brought her experience-honed, extensive professional skillset and vision to the team. Immediately realizing that this was much more than just a local community foundation, Linda saw the national public health implications of Lyme and tick-borne diseases.
Gains on the mission progressed swiftly thanks to the foundation’s unique funding model, which brought to bear both the investment-oriented practices of venture capital and the unbiased skepticism and rigor of an independent medical research entity. A small—but mighty—team made up of a professional grant manager, fundraiser, scientists, financial administrators, and volunteers was assembled quickly. The organization sharpened its focus through funding and fostering new and innovative research to accelerate the development of new diagnostics and treatments for Lyme disease, and cultivating visionary programs, including our Emerging Leader Award, Lyme Disease Biobank, and the Clinical Trials Center at UCSF. By creating new partnerships and collaboration among research institutions, clinical practices, and the public and private sectors, and by attracting new talent and ideas from other fields to the perplexing study of Lyme disease, Bay Area Lyme started to move the needle.
Twelve+ years on, Bay Area Lyme’s impact and achievements in the field of Lyme disease are many and noteworthy. The foundation has grown to become the largest 501c3 public charity funder of Lyme disease research. And in 2025, we started an exciting new chapter, launching Bay Area Lyme Ventures—a new entity dedicated to catapulting proven diagnostics into the marketplace. We are proud of our many accomplishments, and these can be found throughout our website. Also, for a summary of the foundation’s yearly progress, please review our annual impact report.
Through all these achievements, Bay Area Lyme and its indefatigable team never lose sight of the original mission—to make Lyme disease easy to diagnose and simple to cure. While extraordinary gains have been made in the field, at its core, the organization keeps its focus on funding the science that will help Lyme patients. Millions are suffering from tick-borne diseases and the need to develop diagnostics and therapies to detect, fight, and cure Lyme is as urgent as ever.
Lyme disease is the fastest growing vector-borne illness in the US, far outpacing almost all other diseases as it expands both its prevalence and geographic range. And the scope has broadened, as deeper knowledge of the complex interaction among tick-borne co-infections, as well as a rapidly expanding geographic footprint, has been recognized. The challenge is great. Borrelia burgdorferi (the Lyme-causing bacteria)—as well as many of the co-infections—are notoriously sophisticated, and our research understanding is still far from complete.
But this is one foundation that thrives on challenge, and it will not stop until there is a cure and an end to the suffering caused by this insidious disease.
We humbly thank all of the supporters, scientists, doctors, volunteers, partners and donors who have contributed so significantly to our foundation.
