BAL Spotlights Series
In this insightful conversation between Ticktective™ guest host Dana Parish and microbiologist Amy Proal, PhD, we investigate persistent pathogens, how they remain in the body after treatment often leading to chronic illness, and how they can be reactivated by new infections, including Covid-19. Note: This transcribed podcast has been edited for clarity.
Dana Parish: Welcome to the Ticktective Podcast, a program of the Bay Area Lyme Foundation, where our mission is to make Lyme disease easy to diagnose and simple to cure. I’m your guest host today, Dana Parish. I’m the co-author of the book Chronic, and I’m on the advisory board of Bay Area Lyme Foundation. This program offers insightful interviews with clinicians, scientists, patients, and other interesting people. We’re a nonprofit foundation based in Silicon Valley, and thanks to a generous grant that covers a hundred percent of our overhead, all your donations go directly to our research and our prevention programs. For more information about Lyme disease, please visit us at www.bayarealyme.org.

Today, on behalf of Bay Area Lyme Foundation, I am here with brilliant microbiologist Dr. Amy Proal. I have a little bio for her. I’m going to read right now. Dr. Proal serves as president and CEO of PolyBio Research Foundation, and she’s the chief scientific officer of the Long Covid Research Initiative, LCRI. She went to Georgetown, she has a PhD in microbiology from Murdoch University in Australia, and she is a rockstar in the field and a leader in the field of persistent pathogens. She has just come off of a huge press tour for her incredible work and the enormous grant that she just received for her Long Covid research, and I’m so excited to be one of the first people to talk to you after all this.
Amy Proal, PhD: Of course, Dana, thanks so much for having me. That was an amazing intro. I appreciate all of that. It’s great to be interviewed by you. It’s mostly just a friendly conversation, which is fun.
Dana Parish: So, congratulations on your grant. I found out about it all coming together because I saw it in Forbes and then in the LA Times, and then I saw it in the Financial Times and I was like, “Oh my God. This is front page news!” Can you talk a little bit about the work you’re doing in Long Covid?