Understanding Why Some People Get Long-Term Symptoms After Lyme Disease Treatment
Official title: Determinants of Post-Treatment Phenotypes in Lyme Disease
Funded at Johns Hopkins University · NIH-11123273 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This research aims to discover why some individuals continue to experience symptoms after being treated for Lyme disease, while others fully recover.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Johns Hopkins University NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Baltimore, United States) |
| Project start | July 1, 2023 |
| Project end | June 30, 2028 |
| Funding year | 2025 |
| Award (this year) | $612,995 |
| NIH project number | 5R01AI178726-03 |
| Project ID | NIH-11123273 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates for this type of research would include individuals with well-defined Post-Treatment Lyme Disease, healthy controls, and patients recently diagnosed with early Lyme disease.
✕Less likely to help
Patients who have not had Lyme disease or who have fully recovered from it may not directly benefit from this specific research.
What this research studies
We want to understand why some people feel better after Lyme disease treatment and others develop long-lasting symptoms, known as Post-Treatment Lyme Disease (PTLD). We will look at information from patients who have PTLD, healthy individuals, and those with early Lyme disease who are followed over time. By combining advanced statistical and lab methods, we hope to find specific factors that predict who might develop PTLD. Our goal is to create a tool that can help identify patients at higher risk for PTLD in the future.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could lead to better ways to identify patients at risk for PTLD and potentially develop new strategies to prevent or treat these long-term symptoms.
How similar studies have gone: While previous data suggest various factors contribute to post-treatment outcomes, a comprehensive longitudinal analysis with direct translation to clinical practice like this has not been performed before.
Where this research is happening
-
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Aucott, John — Johns Hopkins University
- Study coordinator: Aucott, John
Related research
Other NIH-funded projects on the same topics.
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Understanding why some people have ongoing symptoms after Lyme disease
A long-term study follows people diagnosed with acute Lyme disease to see who develops persistent symptoms and why, with care from a team of Lyme experts.
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CSF Protein Map in Post-Treatment Lyme Disease
A short study to map proteins in spinal fluid of people who had Lyme disease and still feel sick after standard treatment, to understand what’s going on.
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Lyme disease vaccine research aimed at preventing infection
Researchers are developing a Lyme disease vaccine by studying how the immune system responds to Borrelia burgdorferi and testing vaccine approaches to prevent illness.
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Lyme disease brain health: tracking brain signals and blood clues after treatment
This study follows people with early Lyme disease and compares them to healthy volunteers to see how the brain and blood markers change over a year after starting antibiotics.
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Lyme disease symptoms lingering after treatment may be driven by special bacterial fragments
A human-friendly look at a study exploring why some Lyme patients keep symptoms after antibiotics and whether tiny fragments from the bacteria are to blame.
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Understanding Lyme disease immune signals to predict recovery after antibiotics
A research project at MIT aims to find immune biomarkers that tell which Lyme patients will recover after standard antibiotics and who might have lasting symptoms.
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.