Tick Talk

VBS Assistant Professor Peter Larsen and VBS Adjunct Professor and Assistant Professor with the School of Public Health, Jonathan Oliver recently sat down with MplsStPaul magazine reporter, Shiela Mulrooney Eldred to discuss how they use the MinION nanopore sequencing device in the field to discover various types of disease such as Lyme disease in real-time.

This candy bar sized sequencer has been used at various tick surveillance spots in the metro area and across the state. Larsen explains, "It's not only a real-time view, but you can also adapt your fieldwork in real time. You start to see a signal of concerning bacteria or a virus in a certain area, and you can go back and concentrate on that area to get samples."

This device may be a game changer for the future of forecasting areas where tick-borne diseases are active, which could provide tick forecasts for campers and hikers, for tick research, or even future medical management. 'Treatments vary from disease to disease to accurate diagnosis is essential to recovering from the handful of tick-borne diseases common in Minnesota.'

Please see "Tick Tok" in the June 2023 issue of MplsStPaul magazine for the full story.