Many arthropods have evolved to feed on the blood of wild and domestic animals including humans. While ticks comprise a relatively small group of such blood feeders, their unique behaviors and life cycles make them especially important as pests and transmitters of a variety of disease-causing agents. The history of tick research in Montana will be discussed briefly, followed by a discussion of the public health significance of tick-borne diseases in Montana.

Dr. Tom G. Schwan is the Chief and Senior Investigator of the Laboratory of Zoonotic Pathogens for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and the National Institutes of Health at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Hamilton, Montana. Dr. Schwan received his Ph.D. in 1983 in parasitology from the University of California at Berkeley, studying the ecology of fleas and plague in Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya. From 1983 to 1986, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale Arbovirus Research Unit, Yale University School of Medicine, studying tickborne viruses. He served on the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology for 9 years and is on the editorial boards of Vector Borne and Zoonotic Diseases and Emerging Infectious Diseases.

The RML Medical Entomology Section investigates bacterial pathogens transmitted by blood-feeding arthropods. Emphasis is directed toward the Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi, and a relapsing fever spirochete, Borrelia hermsii, in their respective tick vectors. Other pathogenic spirochetes are also studied. Live colonies of ticks allow for studies to elucidate factors important for the infection of these bacteria in arthropods and for their biological transmission when ticks feed. Understanding bacterial adaptations associated with transmission is linked to developing better prevention and diagnostic strategies.

 

The Café Scientifique was co-sponsored by Montana INBRE and Montana State University COBRE programs.