Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University

A novel approach to diagnose Lyme disease

Dr. Artem Rogovskyy is currently an Assistant Professor of Veterinary Pathobiology at the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at Texas A&M University.  He received his Ph.D. in Veterinary Science from Washington State University, his M.S. in Food Science at Louisiana State University, and his D.V.M. in Veterinary Medicine from National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine.

At Texas A&M, his current research laboratory has a long-term goal to develop effective measures aimed at reducing incidence of Lyme disease in the United States and worldwide.  To achieve this goal, Dr. Rogovskyy’s lab has prioritized three areas of Lyme disease research. The first is to develop a robust, rapid diagnostic test that would surpass any of the existing Lyme disease diagnostic assays in its sensitivity and specificity. This is the focus of his 2020 Emerging Leader Award. The second line of research is to construct a subunit vaccine for humans that would be not only efficacious at preventing different genospecies of B. burgdorferi but also exert a therapeutic effect during the human infection. The third is to understand how microbial symbionts affect the tick fitness and competency of Ixodes ticks, the vector of B. burgdorferi, with the ultimate aim of developing novel methods that would disrupt the life cycle of Lyme pathogen in nature.

His diagnostic project was selected for the 2020 Emerging Leader Award, a $100,000 grant. Dr. Rogovskyy’s ELA project is focused on the development of a novel diagnostic approach for Lyme disease. Utilizing samples from the Lyme Disease Biobank, his research will apply a unique spectroscopic technique to develop a robust, rapid diagnostic test.

Artem Rogovskyy, PhD, DVM, along with researchers from Texas A&M University, the study identified Borrelia infection with 88% accuracy, 85% sensitivity, and 90% specificity using Raman spectroscopy, a light-based test commonly used in chemistry labs, to evaluate human blood samples provided by Bay Area Lyme Foundation’s Lyme Disease Biobank. By providing a unique chemical thumbprint to identify Lyme bacteria faster, Raman spectroscopy has the potential to diagnose the disease earlier. Read the full study here.