Researchers to study lyme-like illness in Texas

Tao Lin, D.V.M., and Steven J. Norris, Ph.D., both with the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, have been named grant recipients of the Norman Hackerman Advanced Research Program (ARP) by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. They will receive $150,000 over two years to support their research into conflicting reports about the infectious nature and causative agent of Southern-Tick Associated Rash Illness (STARI) in Texas and other southern states. Tick-transmitted Lyme disease is a bacterial infection common in northeastern, north central, mid-Atlantic seaboard and Pacific coastal states. In 2006, 19,931 cases of Lyme disease were reported yielding a national average of 8.2 cases per 100,000 persons, according to the Centers for Disease Control and... [read full story]