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THE SUBJECT:

ARMIN ALAEDINI

THE JOB:

Assistant professor of medicine, Lyme disease immunology researcher

THE LOCATION:

Columbia University Medical Centre, New York City

THE IMMUNE SYSTEM is kind of like a diary. You can take the blood of a Lyme disease patient two, five, or maybe even ten years down the road and find antibodies against the disease. An issue surrounding Lyme disease is the persistence of symptoms following an infection, called post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome. My lab compares immune responses of patients without symptoms to those who do not recover fully.

We take blood samples and map which parts of proteins from the disease-causing bacteria antibodies bind to. One test is called a pro

tein/peptide microarray ( 1). We print 1 000 protein segments on to a small metallic chip and test them all against a patient sample. Another test, called an ELISA, exposes important segments to lots of samples at once. Equipment we use to read results has improved drastically. We read some results by taking pictures of antibody activity using particular wavelengths of light. We used to use film. That took a long time. The Fluorchem M Imaging System ( 2), which we use now, is digital. It’s not just faster; it’s more sensitive and improves quantitative measurements.

When we identify a particular part of a protein that causes an immune response, we go to a 3D model on VMD molecular modelling software ( 3). Shape and location are important, so that helps us draw further conclusions. Then it’s on to another test.