Lyme Disease Association, Inc.

Lyme Disease Association Achievements

The LDA has many achievements. One in particular, which is shared with the Greenwich Lyme Disease Task Force, is the creation of the Columbia Lyme Disease Research Center. View the press release for the event that raised awareness and money for this center. Find out who attended that night... many famous media personnel! Also, feel free to take a look through the following letters of support written by various, influential officials and other supporters.

Congressman Christopher Smith's Letter upon opening of Lyme & Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center at Columbia University
"I want to offer my most heartfelt congratulations to all of you on this truly great occasion in celebration of the opening of the Lyme & Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center at Columbia University. As someone who has been aggressively advocating for Lyme disease patients and Lyme disease research since the early 1990's and who in that time has met with uncounted numbers of Lyme disease patients and their families, I am so grateful that this - the first in the world endowed research center for chronic Lyme disease - is opening."

The Center is open!
LDA's opening remarks.

April 30, 2007 DREAM TO REALITY
Lyme & Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center at Columbia University Medical Center!
LDA & TFL say: Thank You, Lyme Disease Community, For Your Support!

The Lyme Disease Association and Time For Lyme want to thank the Lyme community for helping to make this dream of a research center a reality. All of us have fought long and hard, together, to establish credibility for chronic Lyme disease. Now, one of the most prestigious institutions in the world, Columbia University Medical Center, has established a research center to study chronic Lyme disease.

A First!
Lyme & Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center Opens at Columbia Through Partnership with Lyme Disease Association & Time for Lyme

Columbia Research Center Support Letters

Genomes Unlock Borrelia Secrets: New Lyme Disease Findings
The Lyme Disease Association announces the release of the following research article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), September 28, 2004: Genetic exchange and plasmid transfers in Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto revealed by three-way genome comparisons and multilocus sequence typing, which represents a major step forward in understanding the Lyme bacteria.

Wednesday, September 25, 2002
The Lyme Disease Association and the Greenwich Lyme Disease Task Force are hosting Time for Lyme in New York on October 18 at Manhattan’s Sky Club at 200 Park Ave. on the 56th floor. The event will raise funds for Lyme disease research and education, and will consist of a cocktail reception, live and silent auctions, and live entertainment. Over five hundred people from the Tri-State area are expected to attend the benefit. Lyme Disease Association spokesperson and Event Honorary Chair, Mary McDonnell (Oscar-nominated actress in Dances With Wolves) will appear at the event. Honorary Committee members include Jayni and Chevy Chase, Tommy Hilfiger, Sonia and Paul Tudor Jones, Magee Hickey and Ellen and Chuck Scarborough.

October 18, 2002 - Actress Mary McDonnell Dances with Lyme - New York Governor's Office & Celebrities
Oscar-nominated Actress Mary McDonnell will serve as honorary chairperson of a benefit dinner to raise money to create the first Lyme disease research center of its kind in the United States at Columbia University. The Time for Lyme benefit dinner, which is open to the public, will be emceed by NBC's Chuck Scarborough and actress Jayne Atkinson, who stars on Broadway in the production of Our Town with Paul Newman. Funds raised at the event also will be directed at Lyme disease education, prevention, and other types of research programs.