Tick-borne disease research receives global boost

A unique scientific resource for the study of ticks and tick-borne diseases has moved to the University of Liverpool with exciting plans for international expansion. The Tick Cell Biobank houses the world’s largest collection of tick cell lines of medical and veterinary importance and enables scientists to carry out vital research into tick-borne diseases. The Biobank will be supported for the next five years with more than £940,000 funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) through the Global Challenges Research Fund, and will establish outposts in South-East Asia, Africa and South America to make the resource more accessible to researchers in low- and middle-income countries. Ticks can carry and transmit a wide array of infectious diseases of livestock, companion animals and man, including Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, Lyme disease and babesiosis, and are second only to mosquitoes as vectors of human pathogens. Dr Ben Makepeace, principal investigator on the new BBSRC project...