Liz Horn, PhD, MBI

BIO

Liz serves as PI of Lyme Disease Biobank, a resource created to provide much-needed blood, urine, and tissue samples to researchers studying Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections. More than 1200 participants (representing early Lyme, later stages of Lyme, persistent Lyme, and controls) have been enrolled at sites in endemic areas, including Long Island, Martha’s Vineyard, Boston, several regions in Wisconsin, and California. Each participant’s sample donation can support up to 50 different research projects. Currently, >85 projects in academia and industry have been approved for samples. For more information about the biobank visit https://www.bayarealyme.org/our-research/biobank/

A tissue bank has been created to collect samples from patients with Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections to understand the impact of these infections on the body. This program is in partnership with the National Disease Research Interchange (NDRI), collecting surgical and post-mortem tissues, and LymeDisease.org, enabling participants in the MyLymeData patient registry to link their registry profile with their tissue samples. This program is provided at no cost to patients and families. Interested individuals can register at https://ndriresource.org/lyme-disease

Liz earned her doctorate in molecular pharmacology and cancer therapeutics from SUNY at Buffalo, was a National Library of Medicine fellow in biomedical informatics, and received her MBI from Oregon Health & Science University. She has spent nearly 2 decades working with non-profit organizations to build research initiatives and collaborations with academia, other non-profits, and industry, and has been working in Lyme disease since 2013. Liz is passionate about building resources to move research forward that help people, improve lives, and reduce suffering.