Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Fund

The purpose of this fund is to support research on lyme and tick-borne diseases, including tick testing at the Thangamani Lab. Consider making a donation using the online form below.

 

Ticks and tick-borne diseases are a growing public health concern. Lyme disease remains an important tick-borne disease in the United States, while Powassan virus, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, and other emerging threats add to the challenge of protecting individuals and communities.

At the Upstate Tick Lab at SUNY Upstate Medical University, we bring together public tick testing, surveillance, data science, and research to better understand and ultimately reduce the impact of ticks and tick-borne diseases.

Your gift to the Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Fund makes an impact in three important ways.

1. Keep tick testing affordable

When someone finds a tick, they often have immediate questions: What kind of tick is it? What pathogens might it carry? What should I know about my potential exposure?

The Upstate Tick Testing Lab provides the public with access to tick identification and molecular testing for tick-borne pathogens.

We charge a nominal testing fee to help cover laboratory and operational costs. Philanthropic support helps us keep these fees as affordable as possible for individuals and families.

Your donation helps support the personnel, laboratory supplies, testing technologies, and infrastructure required to maintain this public-facing resource—while reducing the amount of these costs that must be passed on through testing fees.

2. Turn tick encounters into actionable intelligence

From a single tick to actionable intelligence

Every tick submitted to the Upstate Tick Lab provides more than an individual test result. Collectively, these submissions help us understand where, when, and how people are encountering ticks and the pathogens they carry.

By bringing together tick testing, geographic information, historical surveillance, and other data, we can transform thousands of individual tick encounters into information that benefits entire communities.

Your support helps us advance tickMAP and TickCast, our effort to develop data-driven approaches for translating tick surveillance into timely, actionable information about changing tick and tick-borne disease risks.

Our goal is to provide communities, clinicians, researchers, and public health partners with better information to understand emerging risks and support informed prevention.

3. Advance diagnostics, vaccines and prevention

Tick testing addresses an immediate need. Research helps us address what comes next.

Scientists at the Upstate Tick Lab investigate the complex interactions among ticks, the pathogens they transmit, and their human hosts. By understanding what happens during and after a tick bite, we seek new approaches to detect infection earlier, interrupt transmission, and prevent disease.

Philanthropic support helps advance research toward:

• Novel diagnostics — developing new approaches for earlier and more accurate detection of Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections.
• Vaccines and transmission-blocking strategies — investigating approaches that target ticks, pathogens, or the transmission process to prevent infection.
• Emerging tick-borne diseases — expanding our understanding of Lyme disease, Powassan virus, and other established and emerging tick-borne threats.
• New prevention strategies — translating discoveries in tick biology, pathogen transmission, and human immune responses into approaches that can ultimately protect people from disease.

This builds directly upon the laboratory's existing translational research mission, which includes anti-tick vaccines, transmission-blocking vaccines, and early-warning approaches.

One gift. Three impacts.

Affordable tick testing: Help keep public tick testing within reach for individuals and families.

Actionable intelligence: Help transform thousands of tick encounters into information that communities can use.

Diagnostics, vaccines & prevention: Help accelerate research toward better ways to detect, prevent, and ultimately reduce tick-borne diseases.

Your support makes the entire continuum possible: A tick submitted today can help an individual understand an exposure, contribute to surveillance of an emerging threat, generate data for TickCAST, and support research that may lead to better diagnostics and prevention strategies tomorrow.

That is the power of your gift. DONATE TODAY. Support the Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Fund

 

More Information

1. Learn more about Thangamani Lab: click here
2. Send ticks for testing to Thangamani Lab: click here
3. New York State tick surveillance results: click here

Donate

Online: Click here to donate online now. 

Mail: Send a check or money order payable to the Upstate Foundation. Add “tick research” to the memo line.

The Upstate Foundation, Inc.
750 E. Adams St.  CAB326
Syracuse, NY 13210

Phone: Call 315-464-4416.