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May
18
Posted by Sam Watson on May 18th, 2018
Posted in: Funding, News from the Region
We at the GMR office are pleased to announce that the University of Minnesota-Duluth has been granted a Health Information Outreach award to support their research into Lyme disease.
Project
Description – The Ixodes Outreach Project is a concerted effort to tackle the emerging epidemic of Lyme disease in the upper Midwest. Dr. Ben Clarke and his team at the University of Minnesota-Duluth will be promoting awareness of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases through educational outreach activities, a citizen-science program, and an undergraduate research experience. The primary component of this research project comes in the form of distributed tick-kits. These kits contain: information cards on tick/Lyme disease identification, a tick removal ‘key’, collection tubes, and mailing envelopes. Volunteer residents and visitors of Minnesota’s northeast Arrowhead region will utilize these kits to capture ticks, record attendant information, and mail them back to the research team for analysis.
Objectives – The Ixodes Outreach Projects aims to empower the community to help with research to 1) create a web-based ‘Tick Story Map’, which will combine images, videos, maps, and a database on Lyme and other tick-borne disease research. 2) This research will also afford college students the opportunities of hands-on field experience and lab based analysis. 3) Finally, by incorporating National Library of Medicine resources, such as MedlinePlus, this project will educate and inform participants about quality consumer health information resources that can help to answer questions about Lyme disease and its symptoms.
If you’d like to discover more about the Ixodes Outreach Project, check out the local reporting from the Duluth News Tribune.
ABOUT Sam Watson