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Shining a Spotlight on Infection Associated Chronic Illness and Women's Health

✳︎

✳︎ Shining a Spotlight on Infection Associated Chronic Illness and Women's Health ✳︎

In the News

  • The Science of Why Some People Don’t Recover from Lyme Disease — Inside the Largest Clinical Study at MIT – with Dr. Michal (Mikki) Tal

    Link: Tick Boot Camp podcast episode 555 (February 21, 2026)

    “MAESTRO stands for Measure Absolutely Everything. That’s how we make invisible illness visible.”

    “Borrelia can tap the immune system’s brakes—that’s how it survives.”

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  • Ticked off: How Mikki Tal is using Lyme disease to transform women’s health research

    Link: The Tech (February 19, 2026)

    “B. burgdorferi infection causes several gynecologic pathologies in humans and increases the risk for heavy menstrual bleeding, miscarriage, uterine fibroids, and endometriosis.”

    “The findings suggest persistent infection can reshape reproductive health in ways medicine has largely overlooked.”

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  • MIT’s Mikki Tal Joins HHS Roundtable to Redefine Chronic Lyme as a “Solvable Engineering Problem”

    Link: The CGR article - compilation video (December 15, 2025)

    “‘The reason chronic Lyme is an ‘invisible illness’ is because we don’t have the tests to measure it,’ Tal noted during the session. ‘At MIT, we are rooted in engineering. We are looking at this as a set of solvable problems.’”

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  • Chronic Infections, Fertility, & Immunity: MIT Immunoengineer Makes Groundbreaking Lyme Discoveries

    Link: Bay Area Lyme Spotlight Series (November 17, 2025)

    “Dr. Tal’s team discovered severe uterine infections in female mice with chronic Lyme, launching investigations into links between infection, fibroids, endometriosis, and fertility problems.”

    “Borrelia are masters of immune evasion, and Tal’s research is uncovering how these bacteria manipulate immune checkpoints and persist in the body.”

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  • NYFW Project Lab Coat – MIT Immunologist Dr. Michal Caspi Tal on Chronic Lyme, Immune Responses, and Hope for Patients

    Link: Tick Boot Camp podcast episode 537 (September 27, 2025)

    “For too long patients were told their symptoms were psychological, but the biology we’re measuring shows these illnesses are real.”

    “We’re moving beyond simple yes-or-no antibody tests to develop biomarkers that can actually guide treatment decisions.”

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  • Chronic Lyme Disease Was Once Dismissed. More Doctors Are Coming Around.

    Link: The Wall Street Journal (July 20, 2025)

    “What we’re trying to do is measure everything… I want to find a way to give people hope.”

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