Annie Brewster is an Assistant Professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, a practicing physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, a writer and a storyteller. She is also a patient, diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2001. In response to the disconnection she experienced in healthcare, both as a patient and a provider, and motivated by her belief in the power of stories, she started recording patient narratives in 2010. Integrating her personal experiences with the research supporting the health benefits of narrative, she founded Health Story Collaborative (HSC) in 2013. HSC is dedicated to helping individuals navigating health challenges find meaning, and ultimately heal, through storytelling. She is excited by interdisciplinary, cross-institutional collaborations that break through resistance to change. She is widely published in the press and is author of The Healing Power of Storytelling: Using Personal Narrative to Navigate Illness, Trauma, and Loss (2022).
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.
Amy Proal, PhD
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?
Dr. Charlotte Mao is a pediatric infectious diseases (ID) physician with special focus on Lyme disease and associated infections. She received her medical degree at Harvard Medical School and did her pediatric and infectious disease training at Boston Children’s Hospital. Ticktective Video and Podcast Editor: Kiva Schweig.
Dr. Edward B. Breitschwerdt is the Melanie S. Steele 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 Diplomate, American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine.Ticktective Video and Podcast Editor: Kiva Schweig. Click here for this podcast transcript.
Microbiologist Amy Proal, PhD, serves as President/CEO of PolyBio Research Foundation and Chief Scientific Officer of the Long Covid Research Initiative (LCRI). Her work examines the molecular mechanisms by which viral, bacterial, and fungal pathogens dysregulate human gene expression, immunity, and metabolism. Ticktective Video and Podcast Editor: Kiva Schweig. Click here for this podcast transcript.
Ross Douthat, New York Times columnist, political analyst and author, shares his findings on the state of Lyme research, public perception, and his personal experience with tick-borne infections. Previously he was a senior editor of The Atlantic. He is the film critic for National Review, and he co-founded the New York Times’s weekly op-ed podcast, The Argument. Ross’s most recent book is about his experience with Lyme disease and is called “The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery”.Ticktective Video and Podcast Editor: Kiva Schweig.
Dr. Brandon Jutras is an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Virginia Tech whose recent diagnostic project on Borrelia’s peptidoglycans was selected for a Bay Area Lyme Foundation 2021 Emerging Leader Award. With over 25 peer reviewed publications in many of science’s top journals, Dr. Jutras is an expert in explaining existing and potential Lyme diagnostics. Ticktective Video and Podcast Editor: Kiva Schweig.
Dale Bredesen, MD is the author of the New York Times‘ bestseller, “The End of Alzheimer’s” as well as “The First Survivors of Alzheimer’s”. He has held faculty positions at UCSF, UCLA, and UCSD. Dr. Bredesen directed the Program on Aging at the Burnham Institute before joining the Buck Institute in 1998 as the founding President and CEO. Dr. Bredesen has published many scientific journal articles and holds over thirty patents. NOTE: there were technical difficulties with the video recording so the video does not switch between interviewer and interviewee. Ticktective Video and Podcast Editor: Kiva Schweig.
Steven Phillips, MD is a Yale-trained physician and co-author of the book, “Chronic: The Hidden Cause of the Autoimmune Pandemic”. He has treated over 20,000 patients from over 20 countries. Dr. Phillips is well-published in peer-reviewed medical literature such as the Lancet and has been featured in popular media such as the NY Times, the Huffington Post, Dr. Oz, Fox’s Lyme and Reason, CBS, Revolution Health Radio with Chris Kresser, Dr. Been, and The Doctors. Ticktective Video and Podcast Editor: Kiva Schweig.
Meghan O’ Rourke is the editor of the Yale Review as well as the author of articles in Scientific American, the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, Slate and many poetry publications. She is the author of several books including her newly released book,The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness. Meghan is the winner of many awards and prizes including the Guggenheim Award for General Nonfiction. Meghan has recently been featured on NPR’s Fresh Air, the Ezra Klein Show and Good Morning America. Ticktective Video and Podcast Editor: Kiva Schweig.
