Karen Cyndari
University of Iowa, IA·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Lyme disease bacteria can spread from a tick bite into the joints and cause Lyme arthritis. Some patients keep having painful, swollen joints even after proper antibiotic treatment.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
Lyme arthritis
Lyme disease
Borrelia burgdorferi
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2030
What they work on
- Measure whether Borrelia burgdorferi infection breaks down the tight-junction barrier formed by resident synovial macrophages, using infected human synovial explants imaged by confocal microscopy and histomorphometry.
- Assess how resident synovial macrophages exposed to B. burgdorferi engulf bacteria and produce reactive oxygen species, using RNAscope imaging in tissue, and compare these changes to immune gene activity across lining layers using spatial transcriptomics.
- Relate loss of joint-lining barrier integrity to bone and cartilage damage, using transfer experiments with synovial fluid and culture media from infected explants.
More about the research
This condition, antibiotic-refractory Lyme arthritis, can cause long-term disability. No one fully understands how a joint infection turns into lasting inflammation that no longer depends on live bacteria. Answering that question matters for treating and preventing a tick-borne disease that is becoming more common. It may also explain how other joint infections turn into inflammatory arthritis.
Why it matters
Understanding why Lyme arthritis becomes resistant to antibiotics could reveal new treatment targets to prevent or treat lasting joint inflammation in people with Lyme disease, whose numbers rise each year. Because the same joint-barrier mechanism may operate in rheumatoid arthritis and other infectious arthritis, the findings could also inform care for patients with several kinds of arthritis.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Timothy Casselli
University of South Alabama, AL·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine whether the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier, the cell layer separating blood from the fluid around the brain, is where Borrelia burgdorferi and immune cells enter the central nervous system in infected mice.
Jenifer Coburn
Medical College of Wisconsin, WI·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether the interaction between the Borrelia burgdorferi surface protein P66 and the macrophage receptor SIRPα weakens innate and adaptive immunity, comparing p66-deficient and gene-restored bacteria in mice over six infection time points.
Linden T Hu
Tufts University, MA·Microbiology & Immunology
Follow patients from acute Lyme disease diagnosis until they recover or develop PTLDS, comparing co-infections, inflammation, immune cell types, autoantibodies and bacterial traits, and build a large shared specimen bank.
The school
University of Iowa: 32 labs on PI Pages, $703M a year on research, 418 research doctorates a year.
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