Dr. Nicholas Mantis Awarded $9 Million Contract to Aid in Diagnosis, Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease

Dr. Nicholas Mantis, of Wadsworth Center's Division of Infectious Diseases, was awarded a five-year, $9 million contract by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to study human antibody responses to the Lyme disease pathogen, Borrelia burgdorferi.  

As part of NIAID's B Cell Epitope Discovery Program, Dr. Mantis, in collaboration with Wadsworth Center researchers Dr. Yi-Pin Lin and Dr. Klemen Strle, and partners at MassBiologics/University of Massachusetts Medical School, the New York Structural Biology Center, and the University of Kansas, seek to understand how antibodies interact with B. burgdorferi and contribute to preventing and resolving Lyme disease.

Related publications

• Blocking Borrelia burgdorferi transmission from infected ticks to nonhuman primates with a human monoclonal antibody
• The Factor H-Binding Site of CspZ as a Protective Target against Multistrain, Tick-Transmitted Lyme Disease