Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Bay Area Lyme Foundation is a national 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in Silicon Valley. Its mission is to make Lyme disease easy to diagnose and simple to cure. The foundation partners with leading scientists and institutions to accelerate breakthroughs in diagnostics and treatments, while providing trusted information on prevention and the importance of early intervention and care. It states that despite Lyme disease being one of the most common vector-borne diseases — with ~620,000 new US cases annually and cases reported in 65 countries — research remains significantly underfunded, and the foundation fills this gap by driving innovation in new drug and diagnostics development and supporting researchers nationwide. Thanks to the Bay Area Lyme Endowment, 100% of donor contributions go directly to research and prevention programs.

In 2012, the San Francisco Bay Area was not considered a hot spot for Lyme. People who got bitten by ticks were told that there was "No Lyme in California," and that ticks there were not infected. Friends Laure Woods and Bonnie Crater each had family members or close connections who had been diagnosed with Lyme disease. They called on the expertise of their friends Kathleen O'Rourke and Carin Rollins for ideas. Leveraging a combination of Silicon Valley chutzpah, biology backgrounds, and connections to Stanford University, the group decided to search out scientists to conduct a research project to test if there were infected ticks in the local hills and woodlands. They found tick ecologists Nate Nieto, PhD, working at Northern Arizona University, and Dan Salkeld, PhD, who at the time was with Stanford University. Over a picnic table on campus, the friends persuaded the two scientists to collect ticks from trails in nearby Bay Area parks and test the ticks for the disease-causing bacteria. Laure and Bonnie filed the necessary paperwork, and Kathleen hosted the very first event in the new Portola Valley office. Bay Area Lyme Foundation was born. The resulting tick study proved that there were Western black-legged ticks (Ixodes pacificus) in the Bay Area open spaces, infected with Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that cause Lyme disease in humans. The study gained wide attention and launched Bay Area Lyme Foundation into the national scientific spotlight. After growing the founding group by a few more Lyme community experts, they all agreed that the mission of the foundation would be to make Lyme disease easy to diagnose and simple to cure.

A nonprofit that leverages the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation of the Bay Area to catalyze new and innovative Lyme disease projects around the country.

1. 1Bay Area Lyme Foundationbayarealyme.org
2. 2History of Lyme Disease - Bay Area Lyme Foundationbayarealyme.org
3. 3Our Story - Bay Area Lyme Foundationbayarealyme.org
4. 4About Us - Bay Area Lyme Foundationbayarealyme.org
5. 5Bay Area Lyme Foundationwikidata.org