Dana Mordue, Ph.D., Leads Future Scientists in the Fight Against Tick-Borne Diseases
Aspiring Researchers Join Groundbreaking Efforts to Advance Babesiosis and Lyme Co-Infection Research
Dana G. Mordue, Ph.D., center, vice chancellor for accreditation and student support and associate professor of pathology, microbiology and immunology, has made a career advancing the scientific understanding of tick-borne diseases. This summer, she continued her research on Babesia microti, a microscopic parasite that infects red blood cells and is the main cause of babesiosis in humans in the United States, welcoming five new researchers into her lab, a combination of high school, college, and medical students eager to gain hands-on experience. She also investigated what happens when a person is infected with more than one tick-borne disease at the same time from a single tick bite. Both B. microti and B. burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, can be spread by the same type of tick, Ixodes scapularis. The students, from high schools and colleges across New York and New England, share a deep interest in infectious disease research. Some discovered Dr. Mordue’s work through her colleagues or current lab members, while others found her lab through their own research. Some are returning volunteers from last summer.
“I was drawn by the prospects of contributing to in-lab protocols —like isolating RNA from blood samples and conducting Nano Spectroscopy—and using my computer science background to help with analysis,” said Hailey Brooks, left, an undergraduate junior double majoring in biology and computer science at Mount Holyoke College.
A faculty member of New York Medical College for two decades, Dr. Mordue is a diligent researcher on the subject of host-pathogen interactions, particularly in the context of tick-borne diseases. Even more so, she’s dedicated to extending her experience to students.
“One of the most rewarding aspects of my job is to mentor students in hands-on research in my laboratory. I get to know and work with students individually and see their confidence grow as they master new techniques,” Dr. Mordue said.
Dr. Mordue has undoubtedly fulfilled her student researchers’ desire to learn lab procedures. Luis Reyes, right, a student at New Rochelle High School, said he learned wet lab practices like pipetting, centrifuging, and RNA isolation from blood samples of people with babesiosis and malaria, as well as basic practices like spectrometry, utilizing incubators, Western blot analysis, and making solutions. “I have been so grateful for this experience because it offered me much more insight into lab practices than journal articles could have ever provided,” he said.
Students’ newfound understanding of lab skills are beneficial to their academics. “The techniques I have learned in regard to lab work are such a help when it comes to understanding information I learn in class,” said Anvi Kumar, second from right, a student at Walter Panas High School who returned to the lab from the year prior. “Last summer, I learned how to do horizontal gel electrophoresis, and it was such a help this past school year in AP Biology.”
In a broader sense, Dr. Mordue’s research gives students insight into infectious diseases, the pathology of tick-borne diseases, and the broader study of immunology. According to Matthew Schwartz, an undergraduate junior double majoring in biological sciences and food science at Cornell University, working with Dr. Mordue influenced his decision to attend medical school in the future. After volunteering with her last year, Schwartz added microbiology to his studies because of the experience he gained in Dr. Mordue’s lab.
“Dr. Mordue has been a wonderful and encouraging teacher, not only in explaining her research, but in giving me opportunities to expand my lab skills and to learn about medicine more generally,” Schwartz said.
Though the research remains a work in progress, Dr. Mordue and her team hope to identify patterns in the infected blood that are linked to specific health problems caused by tick-borne infections and changes in gene expression in the peripheral blood of patients with tick-transmitted infections to gain insight into differences in disease severity and complications between patients. Pinpointing these patterns could help guide more effective treatments going forward.
“Babesiosis has a higher mortality rate than Lyme's disease, even though we tend to hear more about Lyme more in daily life,” Brooks said. “Through this research, we're raising public awareness and urgency around developing better care options for patients.”
Dr. Mordue’s research is unprecedented in many ways. It is the first study to analyze a whole blood transcriptome—a set of RNA transcripts—from patients with babesiosis, as well as the first to examine the coinfection of B. microti and B. burgdorferi on clinical parameters associated with disease severity in relation to a person’s peripheral blood transcriptome. Coinfection has become increasingly prevalent as ticks extend their habitats, and humans expand development into wooded areas.
“We live in an area endemic to many tick-transmitted infections, and it is important that people take precautions to avoid ticks, and if bitten, that they remove the tick quickly to avoid the transmission of pathogens,” Dr. Mordue said.
