While Lyme disease is the most recognized and prevalent tick-borne disease in the United States, other infections transmitted through tick bites can be equally or even more dangerous. One of these is the Powassan virus (POWV). Erich Mackow, Ph.
D., a virologist at Stony Brook University, is conducting research in an attempt to uncover one the most dangerous effects of POWV—neurologic damage. Powassan virus is endemic to North America.
It is present in about 2% of Long Island ticks and is injected into the skin during just a 15-minute tick bite. POWV infected patients have a 10% risk of fatal encephalitis and up to 50% of infected patients have long-term neurologic damage. Severe neurologic symptoms are associated with POWV infection in .
Mackow is a Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the Renaissance School of Medicine (RSOM), a core member of Stony Brook's Center for Infectious Diseases , and among a number of scientists at Stony Brook University investigating ways to better target treatments of tick-borne infections. Stony Brook Medicine has a clinic dedicated to treating Lyme disease and all tick-borne infections, such as POWV, and is home to the Regional Tick-Borne Disease Resource Center. "The severity of Powassan encephalitis in the elderly remains an enigma as the mechanisms of the viral neuroinvasion remain virtually unknown," says Mackow.
For this research, Mackow and his RSOM colleagues focus their investigation on analyzing all aspects of.