A Purdue-led team has succeeded in sequencing the deer tick genome, an achievement entomologists say will help scientists better understand how the pests carry and transmit pathogens such as Lyme disease.
Catherine Hill, a Purdue Medical Entomologist and lead author of the paper outlining the genome, says now that scientists have the genetic information, they can work on altering certain genes to, perhaps, create a new, safer type of tick.
"Perhaps editing out the genes that enable a tick to transmit a pathogen so we have populations of ticks that aren't able to transmit Lyme disease or babesiosis, for instance."
Hill also says the information could also help create new bug repellents that interfere with how ticks find their prey.
"Ticks rely on smell to find their hosts so one of the things we might be out to do now is design better repellents to disrupt them from their ability to find a host."
The findings appear in the latest edition of the journal Nature Communications.