Lyme Study Uses Drug Discovery Methods That Have Fueled Cancer Breakthroughs

[Maz]

The times…they are a changin’!

In November, 2015, soon after the launch of the brand new Road Back Foundation website, we published a blog, entitled, “Becoming Your Own Best Advocate,” including a link at the bottom of that page to the story of a Duke oncologist and researcher who had learned the hard way about the need to self-advocate for one’s own health. This doctor had Lyme, but his standard tests kept returning negative, and this led to fulminant heart failure and he needed a transplant. This doc is now using his expertise in repurposing existing immunotherapies in the field of oncology to develop new approaches to treating chronic Lyme disease and Bartonella (for starters). In this endeavor, he’s working with a great team at Duke, including some incredible research experts in the fields of cancer research, basic immunology, and drug development to change the way Lyme disease treatment is approached, as well as other devastating infectious diseases.

Upon reading the following article and this doc’s facebook comments, this research will involve drug-development for the treatment of these chronic infections that will not harm the human microbiome and, while accurately targeting the microbes, will leave human tissues unharmed.

This research is just in the initial early trial stages and will need to go through several years of animal and human trials, but it is definitely research to watch!

Lyme Study Uses Drug Discovery Methods That Have Fueled Cancer Breakthroughs: Labs at Duke and other academic centers collaborate to identify alternatives to antibiotics

“We’re hoping to move from isolating targets to identifying potential drugs to testing in animal models within three years – so a very aggressive timeline,” said Spector, who was a Lyme patient himself and nearly died from complications of disease. “Our goal is to identify drugs that will target the Achilles’ heel of these pathogens while sparing the normal gut microbiome.”

[Author]

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