Emerging Scientists Tackle Tick-Borne Disease Research
Dana Mordue, Ph.D., Opened Her Lab This Summer to Mentor High School and College Students
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This summer, Dana Mordue, Ph.D., vice chancellor for accreditation and student support and associate professor of pathology, microbiology, and immunology, opened up her lab again and mentored a group of undergraduate and high school students researching two of the Northeast’s most common tick-borne diseases. Focusing on Babesia microti, the parasite that causes babesiosis, and Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium responsible for Lyme disease, the students analyzed peripheral blood RNA sequencing data to better understand how both the pathogens and the human immune system respond to infection. Their research aims to identify changes associated with disease progression and severity while discovering potential biomarkers that could improve future diagnosis and treatment.
“This will allow us to begin to identify for the first time how the host (human patient) and parasite interact with one another,” said Dr. Mordue. She explained that the team’s findings may also reveal how co-infection with babesiosis and Lyme disease affects disease severity compared with infection by a single pathogen, providing new insight into illnesses that continue to impact communities across the Northeast.
Among the student researchers in the lab was Wentao He, right, a rising senior at Scarsdale High School, who plans to study biology in college. After examining one of Dr. Mordue’s papers on host pathogen interactions in babesiosis, He was able to identify connections to his own computational research on TNF-alpha inhibitors for Crohn's disease. The relevance of babesiosis in Westchester County made the research especially stand out to him and inspired him to reach out directly. “I cold contacted Dr. Mordue and she offered me a position as a volunteer researcher in her lab,” he said.
Throughout the summer, the students gained hands-on experience analyzing RNA sequencing data using various software such as R Studio, IPA, and Bioconductor Bioinformatic Analysis programs to identify gene expression patterns and better understand the biology of tick-borne diseases. For Amy Gagliardi, second from right, a rising senior at Union College majoring in biology, this experience provided the opportunity to connect new scientific discoveries with future patient care. “By identifying genes and biological pathways that are expressed after infection, this research may help improve our understanding of the disease and identify potential targets for future diagnostics or therapies,” she said. As an aspiring physician, Gagliardi said it was especially rewarding to contribute to research that has the potential to improve infectious disease diagnosis.
This experience confirmed for He that he wants to work in a field with both computational and experimental biology rather than just one or the other. “Since I'm also interested in pharmaceuticals, I recognize that identifying transcriptomic signatures of a disease is a crucial step in drug and vaccine development, and it's a part that I want to be involved in if I want to pursue, in the future, something like therapeutic design.”
Gagliardi also feels as if this research confirmed her desire to pursue a career as a physician and showed her the important role research plays in advancing medicine. “Research pushes you to think critically, solve problems, and become comfortable with challenges that don't have straightforward answers,” she said.
Dr. Mordue said one of the most rewarding aspects of the summer is watching the students take ownership of meaningful research. They are doing more than simply assisting in the lab; they are also performing much of the RNA sequencing analysis for multiple research manuscripts while learning new computational biology tools and approaches.
“Overall, they are doing an exceptional job analyzing the RNA sequencing data for both the host and parasite in order to test our hypotheses and figure out what the data is telling us about the parasite, host, and disease process,” said Dr. Mordue.
