Just in time as warmer weather draws near, the final West Virginia Wesleyan College Faculty Lecture Series of the year will focus on ticks and tick-borne disease in West Virginia.
The community is invited to attend this lecture Tuesday, March 11 at 7 p.m. in the Virginia Thomas Law Center for the Performing Arts.
The project is overseen by Dr. Kim Bjorgo, Department of Biology and Environmental Science chair, and Dr. Melanie Sal, Professor of Biology and Environmental Science, and has been ongoing since 2018. Their research partnership is unique because Bjorgo is an ecologist and Sal is a microbiologist. They work closely together to find and identify ticks, then look for any diseases the ticks might be carrying using DNA analysis.
The professors and a number of student researchers over the years have been studying ticks around Upshur County and beyond.
As the project progresses, the research team will use this information to help the Upshur County community know where ticks carrying vector-borne diseases like Lyme disease are found in high numbers.
Sal said, “Eventually, we will publish this research. Our overall goal is to assess the potential risk of encountering Lyme disease in Upshur County and the surrounding area.”
Bjorgo added, “If we do happen to have a lot of Lyme disease positive ticks in one area, that is good information for folks to have. We want to raise awareness of diseases carried by ticks and remind folks to use insect repellent and do a tick check after being outside.”
So far, several students have expressed an interest in continuing research this summer.
“The next phase is branching out and looking for more than just Lyme disease in ticks,” Bjorgo said. There are other tick-borne diseases and our research partnership allows us to find those areas with lots of ticks and identify the potential pathogens.
