I delivered a research talk titled "Associations between understory plant community composition and blacklegged tick populations in southern Vermont forests", describing our ongoing study into the role of invasive plant species in maintaining blacklegged ticks and pathogen transmission in Rutland county, Vermont. Kristen Ross, a Biology professor on the VTSU Castleton campus, was a co-author on this talk.

Today our Cell Biology class (BIO-3130) visited the Proteomics Lab of the Vermont Biomedical Research Network (VBRN) to learn about protein sequencing. Earlier in the semester the class extracted proteins from black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) and submitted our purified protein samples for analysis. Thanks to Dr. Wai Lam and Sydney Cohn-Guthrie for the tour of the lab, explaining how protein sequencing works and for some inspiring stories!

Today I delivered a presentation at ESA's Annual Meeting in Portland, OR on our research into the role of invasive plant species in tick-borne disease in Vermont. This presentation was part of a Symposium titled "Invasive Plants and Public Health: Unraveling the Connections to Vector-Borne Diseases", organized by Dr. Brian Allan of the University of Illinois.

Figure 1. Detection of PCR amplification products by agarose gel electrophoresis (left), DETECTR using a fluorescence plate reader (middle) and DETECTR using lateral flow test strips (right). The same eight samples were tested by each method.

I attended the 17th International Conference on Lyme Borreliosis and other Tick-borne diseases (ICLB) in Chicago, IL and delivered a poster on our CRISPR/Cas12a DNA detection research. Maya and Samantha were co-authors on the poster.

VTSU students delivered two presentations and this year's Disease Ecology meeting, which was held at Middlebury College. Maya and Samantha gave a talk titled "OspC Variant Identification Of Borrelia burgdorferi Samples; DETECTR VS Nanopore Sequencing". Alexy and Kaylo gave a talk titled "Comparing blacklegged nymph densities within densely invaded and uninvaded understory communities within privately owned woodlands". Thanks to Dave Allen for hosting!

We had a great meeting in Orono, Maine to kick off the DISES project and to share field methods for both the DISES and NEWVEC projects. Thank you Allie for hosting us!