Excellent news!! GOOOO FUNGUS!! I love science.
“We found that actually this fungus works really well at killing the blacklegged ticks,” Nicoletta Faraone, the head of the lab and an associate professor in the chemistry department, told CBC Radio’s Information Morning Nova Scotia on Monday.
The lab’s findings could be a significant development in a province that has the most ticks in Canada, with populations growing in rural and urban areas. There is no vaccine for Lyme disease, which, if left untreated, can lead to severe heart, joint and nervous system symptoms.
The lethality of the fungus was discovered when Luís Anholeto, a research associate, noticed ticks collected from the Harvest Moon Trail in Coldbrook, N.S., and taken back to the Faraone Lab were unexpectedly dying after a few days.
Upon investigation, the researchers determined the fungus, which had attached to the tiny arachnids, was the culprit.
The Faraone Lab is using nanotechnology in its research to isolate the active ingredient in the fungus. Spores can then be turned into a powder that can be sprayed for tick control.
“For example, on your backyard for managing a tick population,” said Faraone. “So the idea is having this product potentially down the road to be developed.”
Similar fungi are already used in agriculture for things like crop protection and pest management.
Faraone said they are now doing more in-depth studies to find the “most optimal concentration of spores.”
“We want to see if we’re able to improve the mortality of the dog tick, which is a little bit more resistant, so it can be easily applied for managing both the species that are very common and they are very present in Nova Scotia,” she said.
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