LymeAlert

Vector borne diseases are a growing threat worldwide. In the US, Lyme disease is the fastest growing vector born disease with almost 500,000 cases diagnosed last year contributing to an economic burden of over $1.3 billion. The CDC estimates the actual number of cases is actually 3x higher. Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases affect animals as well including dogs, horses and livestock. Ticks are spreading thanks to climate change and access to testing can be expensive, expensive and unequal. 

We are creating the first truly at-home tick testing kit for Lyme disease. Our goal is to speed the time to diagnosis, improve access to testing, and aid in global disease surveillance. We plan to start with Lyme disease as our target disease, but our technology can ultimately be utilized for other vector borne diseases as well aiding in the tracking these diseases worldwide and predicting future spread. 

In addition, antibiotic resistance is a growing threat as common illnesses become more difficult to treat and superbugs continue to evolve. Limiting antibiotic treatment to only users with a confirmed disease-carrying tick will aid in the fight to reduce unnecessary antibiotic use and aid in the fight against antibiotic resistance. 

Eventually, we plan to scale to other vector borne diseases, allowing us to help significantly with global disease surveillance and access to testing globally, particularly in developing countries. More than 15 transmissible diseases have been found in ticks and that number continues to grow. 

Improving access to testing and speeding up time to diagnosis will reduce the effects of tick borne disease such as Lyme disease which can have severe, lifetime consequences. We are on a mission to make medical testing affordable and accessible. We hope you will join our mission. 

We are creating a home tick testing kit. Our test is simple, easy to use and shelf stable. If a tick is found, simply put it in our tick crusher/test tube, add our patent pending solution and watch for a color change. If the solution changes color, the tick carries disease, and you will be prompted to seek medical attention. If it does not change color, you save the time, cost and difficulty of seeking medical treatment and avoid the use of unnecessary antibiotics. This also helps in the fight against antibiotic resistance.

Our technology uses gold-labeled nanoparticles that bind specifically to the target protein. This creates a visible color change reaction that is visible to the naked eye.  

Our test pairs with an app. If the color change is not strong, the built-in wavelength reader on our app will definitively read your test as positive or negative. Data with geolocation can be shared with departments of health and epidemiologists to help map the rate of positive results. Our built in AI model will also train on the collected data to help model risk and likelihood of disease spread. In this way, we hope to provide public health education and awareness by alerting users when they are entering an area with a high rate of disease and advise them on precautions to take. 

We are starting with Lyme disease, after which we plan to scale to other vector borne diseases, allowing us to help significantly with global disease surveillance and access to testing globally, particularly in developing countries. More than 15 transmissible diseases have been found in ticks and that number continues to grow. 

Vector borne diseases are a growing threat globally. There is a difference in awareness from country to country. For example, in the United States, awareness is higher regarding the human effects of vector borne diseases such as Lyme and is only just emerging for awareness of the effects on livestock. Conversely in South America, governments have waged significant public health campaigns on the effects on livestock, but awareness of human risks are more limited. 

In all cases, testing ticks has been identified as an ideal way to measure the spread of these diseases that does not exist out of transporting samples to labs. 

Having an easy to use, affordable home testing option will improve access to testing, speed time to diagnosis, reduce the chronic effects of vector borne diseases and reduce the use of unnecessary antibiotics. 

Home testing has been recognized as an way of improving health equity for those who cannot easily access medical facilities or do not have the financial means of paying for higher level of care. In this way, we are improving access to screening, allowing people to make a more informed decision about their need to seek medical treatment. 

I have been a healthcare provider for 15 years and have seen firsthand the effects of patients delaying care due to financial reasons, transportation issues, and lack of awareness. I left my job after Covid to pursue further education at MIT to explore how emerging technology could improve access and equity in healthcare. Our team formed during a healthcare entrepreneurship class where we all realized we had a shared passion for this issue. 

On a personal note, a high school soccer teammate was hospitalized for months with encephalitis from undiagnosed Lyme disease. I have seen firsthand the devastating effects. Growing up in Southeastern MA where Lyme is endemic, and now raising my kids here, my daughter was chanting "Check for ticks!" by age 2. 

Our team is diverse geographically, ethnically and professionally. One thing we all have in common is having a personal connection to the effects of vector borne diseases on our communities. We each bring unique perspectives on the different ways our respective communities need to be engaged with, which gives us a unique advantage in deploying this globally. 

We have recently partnered with Project Lyme to help each other amplify the education and awareness components of our projects. We completed the PKG social innovation challenge where we learned various strategies for developing public awareness campaigns and engaging with various stakeholders. 

It is important to note that our work is not done. We continue to interview stakeholders to seek feedback and input on our project. We are constantly learning and evolving and expect that even after we launch we will remain agile and open to input from every community we aim to assist. 

When we initially conceptualized this solution, we envisioned it as a solution primarily to improve access for people. During our customer interview process (currently 75 interviews), we discovered how devastating vector borne disease is for farmers and livestock. We have now greatly expanded our customer discovery to better understand the needs of the farmers both here and in developing countries, leading us to begin prototyping a kit that can actually batch test multiple ticks pulled off of one animal all at the same time. This further reduces the costs of testing which we hope will encourage greater use of our test. 

We have successfully been granted bench space at the MIT Biomakers Space and are in the process of lab testing to ensure our color change reaction is reproducible and reliable. 

We have created a website (www.lymealert.info) to collect information on interest. We currently have a 20% conversion rate of visitors to the website subsequently signing up for future updates. 

We have received verbal confirmation from 3 veterinarians to offer our test to their patients. 

We have created an initial app which we are continuing to refine as we get more feedback. 

We have designed our tick crusher, which is an important part of our solution as ticks are surprisingly hard to crush.

We have formalized a community partnership with Project Lyme to help build awareness and education. They have provided us copy for our app that has been developed with experts in the infectious disease community. The app will alert users when they are in an area with high tick borne disease incidence and provide education/awareness tips from Project Lyme. Prevention is a big part of our solution!

We are first-time entrepreneurs and recognize that the impact of our project could be really large and help a lot of communities. At the same time, we are painfully aware of how much we do not know. Access to experts who can help with figure out manufacturing, scaling globally and connecting with communities both nation-wide and globally would be greatly appreciated. Although we are working hard to make as many connections as we can to help us with these issues, we recognize that we cannot do it all as fast as we would like without help and guidance of others who have walked this path before us. 

Tick testing in itself is not new, but we are using a novel nanotechnology that can be used at home. Traditional methods involve packing the tick and mailing it (with payment) to a lab. This is a method that involves multiple steps that many people do not have the time, resources or accessibility to make this widely useful. 

By creating a home kit that can be purchased easily online or at a mass retailer, or distributed by local health authorities, we can empower people to know in less than 15 minutes if they need to take steps to seek treatment for vector borne diseases. The "watch and wait" method can be deadly in rural areas where diseases such as Rocky Mountain Spotted fever can cause internal hemorrhaging and death within a few days of exposure if not treated promptly. 

Our companion app will allow results to be tracked allowing us to use AI to create heat maps and predict future areas of spread. This can allow public heath officials to do targeted eradication and education to maximize the impact of their efforts in slowing the spread of disease.

1. Public health campaign-->Tick is found--> tick testing kit is purchased --> tick is negative for disease --> user saves time, expense of a medical/vet visit and unnecessary antibiotic use --> less antibiotic resistance develops-->user has positive experience and spreads awareness-->disease burden lessens as awareness/prevention increase

2. Public Health campaign-->Tick is found--> tick testing kit is purchased--> tick is positive for disease-->kit contains guidance to seek medical treatment-->antibiotics are started promptly-->chronic health effects are avoided-->test user spreads community awareness of the efficacy of testing-->disease burden lessens as awareness/prevention increase

2. Public health campaign delivers kits to communities--> awareness increases-->access/equity improved--> communities take preventive measures for tick diseases--> incidence of tick diseases are reduced-->users with positive experience spread awareness, further reducing disease burden as prevention improves.

Our mission is to make home tick testing easy and accessible to reduce the time to diagnosis, improve access to medical testing, improve healthcare equity and reduce the use of unnecessary antibiotics. 

We are synthesizing gold labeled nanoparticles that will bind specifically to the proteins of our target disease. We are starting with Lyme disease. This will create a visible color change reaction. 

Part of our technology involves crushing the tick to allow the bacteria to be exposed to our solution. We are developing an all in one plastic tube that contains the grinder and the solution to minimize the parts and packaging required as well as to make the test simple and intuitive for all users to use regardless of education level. 

Some users may want confirmation that the color change they see actually means their test is positive. We are building a companion app that will use computer vision to measure the wavelength of the color change and give both a graphic and a written result in the users language of choice. The app will also collect the location data of the test and results and use that in mapping tick data. AI/ML will predict future spread, aiding in future disease prevention. 

Five

10 months

Our entire team consists of students and 1 recent graduate. We span 3 countries and are primarily female led. We are also diverse age-wise, with one member from each decade between 20 and 50. Despite our differences, we care about each other and make space for each voice to be heard. At various times, we have had challenges related to availability due to competing academic commitments. Each time that has happened, the rest of the team has stepped up to support that person until they were able to fully re-engage. We feel comfortable speaking up about our needs and challenges and recognize that the personal can affect the professional. Making space for each other's evolving needs has been a source of bonding over the year. We have pushed each other out of comfort zones and are proud to say that each member has had the chance to speak publicly on behalf of our project. By next month, every single team member will have had the chance to pitch in a competition. This is not something part of our team could have envisioned themselves doing when we started, but because we are passionate about this project and fiercely support each other's growth and development, we have all grown in confidence and recognize that we are strongest when we all support each other doing hard things. 

We plan to primarily be B2C. We think that the fastest way to market is to produce our test kits and sell directly online and through veterinarians and pet stores. We have chosen this entry point to allow us to generate revenue while we apply for FDA approval as a Class 1 device to market for human use. We are not claiming to be a diagnostic, only a diagnostic aid, and therefore we are exempt from higher level requirements such as clinical trials. 

Once we obtain FDA approval, we plan to seek partnerships with mass retailers in the US and non-profit entities in developing countries in alignment with our goal of making this as widely available and accessible as possible. 

We plan to enter the animal market as our beach head. This will allow us to generate revenue while we await Class 1 FDA approval to market for human use. We estimate that this will take 12-18 months based on the fact we are not claiming to be a diagnostic and will not require clinical trials. We have had discussions with veterinary clinics and horse farms who have verbally indicated they would purchase our kits and plan on signing letters of intent. 

We have been accepted to MIT Delta V accelerator which will cover us through this summer. We are in the process of applying to several grants with the hopes of generating funding that way.