Written by: Jenna Jacobs | jjacobs@cshl.edu
During the June 2022 meeting, 鈥淧erinatal Transmission of Lyme Disease,鈥� we had the opportunity to speak to Alessandra Luchini, Ph.D., professor and director of the biosciences Ph.D. program at George Mason University. Through her research, Professor Luchini seeks to develop technologies that improve current diagnostics and therapeutics for cancer and inflammatory and infectious diseases. We spoke to her about the progression of her diagnostic testing research, from cancer to Lyme disease.
*Interview conducted by Hannah Stewart
Could you please tell us about your work at George Mason University?
Absolutely! My work at George Mason University is focused on developing better diagnostic testing. I joined this university from Italy 17 years ago; the original purpose was to develop a better test for cancer diagnosis. On my plane to the U.S., I was envisioning this task to be very short [laughs]. I thought I would be coming back to my family in Italy with new, very successful tests that were going to save a lot of lives. But, when I got into the work, I realized that there were many, many, many challenges. I set off to develop new technologies that would overcome these challenges, and then I decided to apply them to other problems, including infectious diseases.
Among infectious diseases, I was surprised and extremely interested to find that Lyme disease has such a diagnostic gap. Currently, for patients, we don鈥檛 have good, appropriate, accurate, direct tests. The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us a lot, including the difference between measuring immune response to a disease, and determining if someone is harboring an active infection at the time of testing. We have the PCR swab test for COVID-19, but there is not an equivalent for Lyme disease. I could not understand why.
My interest in Lyme disease was sparked by an intern who had joined the lab in high school; her name is Temple Douglas. Though she鈥檚 not working on Lyme disease anymore, she鈥檚 gone on to be extremely successful in her career. She brought the problem to me many years ago, because it was very seriously affecting her loved ones. We worked together to apply technologies that we developed for cancer to Lyme disease – namely, analyzing urine to find biomolecules of the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, Borrelia.
Along the way, I have been very fortunate to meet and collaborate with experts in Lyme disease. Together, we have started collecting human samples, and, a few years ago, we proved in a published paper that it is possible to see in the urine pieces of these bacteria scattered across the body, and hidden in immunological sanctuaries such as the connective tissue, the brain, the heart, the joints.
What got you interested in diagnostic testing in the first place?
I see diagnostic testing as the ultimate mystery novel. It is the process of finding the truth about what is causing problems to people: the bad guy, the culprit of all this suffering. I think that medical diagnostics is a very fascinating field. I鈥檓 not a physician; I am a lab scientist. My professional focus progressively shifted from engineering to bioengineering and biology. It is true that every case, every patient, every biological specimen is extremely complicated and a mystery in itself.
Especially because you鈥檙e looking at cancer, of which there are hundreds of different kinds. Do all of them need a different diagnostic tool?
Absolutely. Scientists are now looking at cancer as a society of individual clones that tightly cooperate together to make the cancer successful. Trying to dissect the molecular signature of this complexity is a big task 鈥� very challenging, but also stimulating.
This is your first time at the Banbury Center. What do you think of the meeting so far?
I think it鈥檚 a lovely venue. We had a wonderful welcoming, and I feel very safe and looked after here amid the pandemic. I think it鈥檚 just beautiful. I do love the format of very small discussion groups; it鈥檚 very conducive to productive and frank discussions. Specifically, this meeting 鈥� with patient advocates, lab scientists, regulatory experts, and physicians 鈥� brings different perspectives to the table to effectively tackle the complexities of Lyme disease research.