With the help of five Penn undergrads, biology professor Dustin Brisson’s research group collected 9,000 tick specimens this summer to understand how seasonal activity patterns of these arachnids affects human pathogens and what role a changing climate might play.
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On a July morning at Hildacy Preserve, a small group of Penn scientists gathered to collect ticks in the thick summer moisture: Mitchell Degasperis, a research technician who just began the master’s in environmental studies program; Pierce Bruner, majoring in biology and classical studies; biology major Erin Chen; and Yousuf Jamal, a philosophy, politics, and economics major.
To conduct this work, students walk along the edge of a hiking trail dragging a white flag of cotton canvas along the leaf litter. Every 20 steps or so, they check their flags—meant to mimic browsing mammals—for ticks.
Run out of the Evolution and Ecology of Disease Systems Laboratory and directed by biology professor Dustin Brisson in the School of Arts & Sciences, the project investigates the effect of tick seasonal activity patterns on populations of human pathogens carried by black-legged ticks, Ixodes scapularis, also known as deer ticks. With funding from the National Institutes of Health, the project conducted its first tick collection in April 2024 and will continue doing so until the fall of 2027.
The summer’s work concentrates on field collection and tick IDs, but Bruner has also worked on DNA extraction and polymerase chain reaction, putting the DNA into a thermocycler that heats it up, extending the chain and causing it to replicate. “That’s how we beat disease,” Bruner says. “When we extract the tick DNA, it’s not just the tick’s DNA, it’s everything” including possible pathogens.
In Philadelphia, the project is taking place at eight sites. Through this work, the research team is trying to answer questions about what role the timing of certain behaviors at different tick life stages might play in pathogen transmission. Because the researchers also collect environmental variables, including temperature and humidity, they also hope to assess how climate change is affecting ticks and Lyme disease.
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