bartonella Archives - Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Ed Breitschwerdt, DVM, PhD: Bartonella, PANS & Autism: The Infection Connection

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Ed Breitschwerdt, DVM, PhD

Dr. Edward B. Breitschwerdt is a professor of medicine and infectious diseases at North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine. He is also an adjunct professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center, and a Diplomate, American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM). Dr. Breitschwerdt directs the Intracellular Pathogens Research Laboratory in the Institute for Comparative Medicine at North Carolina State University. He also co-directs the Vector Borne Diseases Diagnostic Laboratory and is the director of the NCSU-CVM Biosafety Level 3 Laboratory.

Breitschwerdt’s clinical interests include infectious diseases, immunology, and nephrology. For over 30 years, his research has emphasized vector-transmitted, intracellular pathogens. Most recently, he has contributed to cutting-edge research in the areas of animal and human bartonellosis.

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Liz Horn: The Lyme Disease Biobank That Could Change Everything

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Liz Horn, PhD, MBI

Liz Horn, PhD, MBI, serves as Principal Investigator of Lyme Disease Biobank, a resource that provides much-needed blood, urine, and tissue samples to researchers studying Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections. She has spent more than 2 decades working with non-profit organizations to build research initiatives and collaborations with academia, other non-profits, and industry. Since 2020, she has served as a scientific advisor for the LymeX Diagnostics Prize, a public-private partnership between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation. Liz is passionate about building resources to move research forward that help people, improve lives, and reduce suffering. She earned her doctorate in molecular pharmacology and cancer therapeutics from SUNY at Buffalo, was a National Library of Medicine fellow in biomedical informatics, and received her MBI from Oregon Health & Science University.

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Dr. Somer DelSignore: Congenital Lyme, PANS/PANDAS & Hope for Families

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Somer Delsignore, DNP

Dr. Somer Delsignore, DNP, is a Doctor of Nursing Practice and board-certified pediatric nurse practitioner specializing in complex chronic illness in children. Her clinical work focuses on the diagnosis and management of immune dysfunction using a root-cause approach. She developed the R.E.S.E.T. Protocol using a Root Cause lens to treat Immune Dysfunction systematically. A fellow of MAPS and AAOT and a member of ILADS, her expertise includes autoimmune, neuroimmune, and psychiatric manifestations of infectious diseases, especially tick-borne illnesses, as well as links to Autism Spectrum Disorder, PANS/PANDAS, and autoimmune encephalopathy. Delsignore completed her graduate and doctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania and SUNY Upstate Medical University, graduating magna and summa cum laude, and trained at leading pediatric centers, including Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Penn State Children’s, and Children’s Health in Dallas. She is the CEO and Founder of Hudson Valley Integrative Health in Beacon, New York.

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Amy Offutt, MD: Lyme, Integrative Medicine, & True Healing

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Amy Offutt, MD

Dr. Offutt is the medical director and co-owner of Heart & Soul Integrative Health and Yoga which she co-founded with her husband, Brad, in 2007, located in Marble Falls, Texas. Her first seven years of practice were focused on rural family medicine and obstetrics after which she transitioned to approach the treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases using integrative medicine. She completed medical school at The University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio and completed a residency in Family Medicine at Christus Health. She has completed a fellowship with the American Academy of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine and has a Master’s Degree in Integrative Medicine from George Washington University.

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Dr. Casey Kelley: From Lyme & Mold to Optimum Health

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Bay Area Lyme Spotlight Series

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In a powerful Ticktective™ episode, host Dana Parish sits down with Casey Kelley, MD, Founder and Medical Director of Case Integrative Health, to unpack the complex world of Lyme disease, mold toxicity, environmental illness, and whole-body healing. Dr. Kelley had her own health journey with chronic fatigue, POTS, and other symptoms that led her to specialize in Lyme, tick-borne diseases, mold illness, long COVID, and other complex chronic illnesses. She brings clarity, compassion, and years of integrative and functional medicine experience to help patients understand what’s driving persistent symptoms and what true recovery can look like.

“The nervous system is utterly important to healing. And that entire system gets really thrown off with chronic infections exactly the same way that trauma with a capital T will cause dysfunction in the system.”

– Casey Kelley, MD

Better Tests, Better Answers

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

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.

Dr. Casey Kelley: From Lyme & Mold to Optimum Health

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Casey Kelley, MD

Dr. Casey Kelley, MD, is a board-certified family medicine physician and one of the first to earn certification in integrative medicine. Founder and medical director of Case Integrative Health in Chicago, she specializes in functional medicine to address root causes of chronic conditions like Lyme disease and mold toxicity. A graduate of Ohio State University College of Medicine (2007), she completed residency at St. Joseph Hospital, lectures nationally on integrative topics, and serves on faculty at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

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Dr. Jyotsna Shah: Inside IGeneX’s Game-Changing Lyme Test

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Jyotsna Shah, PhD

Dr. Jyotsna Shah is an immunologist and molecular biologist with over 40 years of experience in diagnostic tools for tick-borne diseases. She holds a Ph.D. in diagnostic immunology from the University of Nairobi and conducted postdoctoral work at Harvard University. Shah joined IGeneX in 1997, becoming Laboratory Director in 2003 and now serving as President and CEO.

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Mikki Tal, PhD: Chronic Infections, Fertility, & Immunity: MIT Immunoengineer Makes Groundbreaking Lyme Discoveries

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Mikki Tal, PhD

Mikki Tal, PhD, is a Principal Scientist at MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering and Associate Scientific Director of the MIT Center for Gynepathology Research. She leads the Tal Research Group, focusing on host-pathogen interactions, immune responses to infections like Lyme disease, and the mechanisms behind chronic illnesses, particularly their disproportionate impact on women. She earned her PhD in Immunobiology from Yale University and conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford University’s Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. Tal was the recipient of our 2018 Bay Area Lyme Foundation Emerging Leader Award.

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Dr. Joe Burrascano: A Masterclass on Tick-Borne Illness

By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Ticktective Podcast Transcript

In this episode of Ticktective™, host Dana Parish interviews Joe Burrascano, MD. Dr. Burrascano is a pioneer in the field of Lyme disease, having treated patients since the early days of the illness in the 1980s and 1990s. He co-founded the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) to help train clinicians in treating Lyme and associated tick-borne diseases. Dr. Burrascano discusses the challenges in diagnosing and treating Lyme, including issues with the limited testing criteria and the chronic, multisystemic nature of the disease. He outlines his approach to treating early Lyme with a “hybrid” antibiotic regimen, as well as the use of pulsed and cycling antibiotic therapies for chronic cases. He also highlights the importance of addressing underlying health factors like immune dysfunction, toxin buildup, and co-infections like Bartonella and mold toxicity in chronic Lyme patients. Dr. Burrascano emphasizes the need for a holistic, patient-centered approach to managing complex, persistent tick-borne illnesses.

“If you have something that’s every part of your body is bothering you, and it comes and goes and it moves around, of course, you’re going to be labeled as a little bit cuckoo. It’s not. It’s Lyme disease.”

– Joe Burrascano, MD

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 host, Dana Parish, and I’m the co-author of the book Chronic, and I sit on the advisory board of Bay Area Lyme Foundation. This program offers insightful interviews with scientists, clinicians, patients, and other interesting people. We’re a nonprofit based in Silicon Valley, and thanks to a generous grant that covers a hundred percent of our overhead, all of your donations go directly to our research and prevention programs. For more information about Lyme disease, please visit us@bayarealyme.org.