Dr. Neelakanta’s lab researches human and animal tick-borne infectious diseases such as human anaplasmosis, Lyme disease, relapsing fever, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. He and his laboratory members use multidisciplinary approaches to characterize tri-partite interactions involving vector-host-pathogens at the molecular level. His lab is characterizing some of the interesting tick and bacterial molecules that could be potentially implemented in the development of vaccines against tick-borne diseases.