Professor; Coordinator, M.S. Cellular & Molecular Biology Biology and Environmental Science Department University of New Haven

Dr. Eva Sapi is a Professor and Department Chair at University of New Haven and an internationally recognized expert in Lyme disease research.  Dr. Sapi has trained more than 90 graduate students in Lyme disease research and published 70 peer-reviewed scientific papers in the field.

Dr. Sapi is known for her research on biofilms. She published her discovery of Borrelia biofilms in human infected skin tissue in the European Journal of Microbiology & Immunology. Dr. Sapi’s current research, with James Goldman from Columbia University, centers on a case in which a woman received 16 years of antibiotic therapy and still died from Lyme disease. Dr. Sapi was named a research trailblazer by LymeDisease.org in 2018.

The goal of Dr. Sapi’s research is to ultimately identify novel antibacterial agents that are effective in killing all forms of Borrelia. Her lab continues to study a recent breakthrough in which they found that liquid, whole-leaf stevia extract can reduce Borrelia biofilm mass by about 40 percent.

Dr. Sapi’s initial research focused on breast and ovarian cancer. However, after contracting Lyme, she shifted her focus to finding a better treatment for Lyme disease. She received her Ph.D. in genetics at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary and did her post-doctoral training at Yale University’s School of Medicine.