Bay Area Lyme Leading the Way Series
“The IGeneX test is far more sensitive than most commercially available tests for Lyme disease, detecting far more positive patients compared to standard two-tier ELISA or Western Blot tests,”
– Jyotsna Shah, PhD
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For people living with or who suspect Lyme disease, getting a clear diagnosis can feel like the hardest part. Symptoms often mimic those of other illnesses, and traditional tests miss many cases.
In this episode of Ticktective™, Dr. Jyotsna Shah, President and Laboratory Director of IGeneX, shares with our host, Dana Parish, how her team is changing that—and how Bay Area Lyme Foundation helped make it possible.
Dr. Shah explains how partnerships between innovative labs like IGenex, Bay Area Lyme Foundation, and our Lyme Disease Biobank are helping deliver faster, more accurate diagnostics—and new hope for patients who’ve struggled for years to find answers.
In This Ticktective Episode, You Will Learn:
- Why traditional Lyme disease tests miss so many infections and what that means for patients.
- How IGeneX’s new FDA-cleared ImmunoBlot detects multiple Borrelia species for far greater accuracy.
- How early and late-stage Lyme can now be identified more reliably, leading to better treatment outcomes.
- How the test can distinguish between new and past infections to guide clinical care.
- Why recognizing co-infections like Babesia and Bartonella is crucial for full recovery.
- How Bay Area Lyme Foundation’s Lyme Disease Biobank provided the patient samples that made this breakthrough possible.
- How partnerships between patients, donor-supported nonprofits, and diagnostics companies are transforming the future of Lyme testing.
A Patient-driven Victory
For Bay Area Lyme Foundation, this success story represents exactly why our organization exists: to make Lyme disease easy to diagnose and simple to cure. By funding research, collecting high-quality patient samples in our Lyme Disease Biobank, and connecting scientists like Dr. Shah with those resources, Bay Area Lyme has accelerated real progress for patients in areas they care most about, namely diagnostics and therapeutics.
Thanks to collaborations like this, tick-borne disease testing is finally catching up to the complexity of these diseases. For Lyme patients who’ve struggled for years without clarity, that’s more than good science—it’s hope.
Jyotsna Shah, PhD, is President and Laboratory Director of IGeneX, Inc., with more than 40 years of research experience in immunology, molecular biology, and microbiology, and over 20 patents. After earning degrees in biological sciences in the UK and a PhD in diagnostic immunology from Nairobi University, she established East Africa’s first DNA sequencing lab as a postdoctoral scientist at ILRAD. She later joined Harvard University’s Department of Tropical Medicine, developing molecular tools for diagnosing parasitic diseases. Since joining IGeneX in 1997, Dr. Shah has led the development of breakthrough molecular tests for tick-borne diseases, including the first FISH test for Babesia and a comprehensive PCR program for Lyme and related infections. Under her leadership, IGeneX has become a world leader in the accurate diagnosis of tick-borne diseases. This blog is part of our Bay Area Lyme Leading the Way series. If you require a copy of this article in a bigger typeface and/or double-spaced layout, contact us here. Bay Area Lyme Foundation provides reliable, fact-based information about Lyme and tick-borne diseases so that prevention and the importance of early treatment are common knowledge. For more information about Bay Area Lyme, including our research and prevention programs, go to www.bayarealyme.org.