Allen Steere facts for kids

Allen Caruthers Steere is an American doctor who specializes in rheumatology, which is the study of diseases affecting joints and muscles. He is a professor at Harvard University and used to teach at Tufts University and Yale University. Dr. Steere, along with his mentor Stephen Malawista, is famous for discovering and naming Lyme disease. He has written nearly 300 articles about Lyme disease over more than 40 years of studying this infection. In 1998, the Governor of Connecticut even declared September 24th as "Allen C. Steere Day" to honor him.

Dr. Steere's Life and Career

Dr. Steere went to medical school at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, finishing in 1969. After his training, he worked for two years with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). He traveled around the country to investigate disease outbreaks.

In 1975, he began studying rheumatology at Yale University. Soon after, he heard about many children in Lyme, Connecticut, who seemed to have a type of arthritis. Dr. Steere investigated and realized it was a new illness spread by ticks.

Working at Top Universities

From 1977 to 1987, Dr. Steere taught at Yale University. Then, from 1988 to 2002, he led the Rheumatology Division at Tufts University Medical Center. Since 2003, he has been a professor at Harvard Medical School.

Throughout his career, Lyme disease has been his main focus. He helped describe the disease, create tests for it, and find ways to treat it. He also studied how the disease affects the body and helped test the first vaccine to prevent it.

Discovering Lyme Disease

In 1975, a mother named Polly Murray from Lyme, Connecticut, contacted the Connecticut State Health Department. Two of her children had been diagnosed with arthritis, and she knew other kids in the area had similar problems.

David R. Snydman, a health officer, contacted Dr. Steere at Yale. They had worked together before at the CDC. Snydman thought the symptoms were worth investigating.

Investigating the Outbreak

Dr. Steere met with Ms. Murray, who gave him a list of children with similar symptoms. He called each family and found 39 children and 12 adults suffering from what seemed to be arthritis.

About a quarter of these people remembered getting a strange, spreading skin rash before other symptoms. This rash is called erythema migrans. A European doctor visiting Yale pointed out that this rash was common in Europe and linked to tick bites. Most rashes were on the body, suggesting a crawling insect, even though most patients didn't remember a bite.

Finding the Cause

In 1976, Dr. Steere tested blood samples from patients for many known tick-borne diseases, but none were positive. As more cases were found in Connecticut and nearby states, the disease became clearer.

Dr. Steere then learned about the work of a Swedish doctor, Arvid Afzelius. In 1909, Afzelius had described a similar expanding rash, also linked to Ixodes ticks. European research showed that this rash and another tick-caused rash responded to penicillin. This suggested the illness was caused by bacteria, not a virus.

The discovery of erythema migrans in U.S. patients helped doctors realize that "Lyme arthritis" was part of the same tick-borne disease found in Europe. The illness first found in Lyme and Old Lyme, Connecticut, became known as "Lyme arthritis" and later "Lyme disease."

In 1980, Dr. Steere and his team began testing antibiotics to treat adult patients with Lyme disease. He also published early work on how Lyme disease could affect the nervous system and heart in 1977. In 1979, he wrote about the long-term effects of the disease.

Dr. Steere also worked on tests to identify antibodies against B. burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease. This helped doctors diagnose the disease more accurately.

The Lyme Vaccine: Lymerix

As the head of rheumatology at Tufts School of Medicine, Dr. Steere led the research for Lymerix. This was a vaccine to prevent Lyme disease, made by SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline or GSK). It became available in January 1999. The research took four years, involved 11,000 patients, and many scientists across ten states.

Lymerix worked by targeting a protein on the surface of the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria. This made the body's immune system create antibodies to fight the protein. The vaccine was found to be 78 percent effective. Patients received three shots over a year.

Why Lymerix Was Removed

When the vaccine was approved in 1998, some concerns remained about its long-term safety. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved it for people at high risk. However, GSK removed Lymerix from the market in 2002. This was due to low sales, its high price, and the fact that it couldn't be given to children under 15. It also required frequent booster shots.

Dr. Steere's Current Research

In recent years, Dr. Steere has studied how infections can trigger autoimmune diseases. These are conditions where the body's immune system mistakenly attacks its own healthy tissues. He focuses on patients with Lyme arthritis that doesn't get better with antibiotics, and also on rheumatoid arthritis.

He and his team have found new proteins that the immune system attacks in patients with Lyme arthritis. He has also developed a treatment plan for these patients. After antibiotics, they receive medicines that calm the immune system, similar to treatments for rheumatoid arthritis.

Understanding Immune Responses

His current studies, supported by the National Institutes of Health, explore how the Lyme disease bacteria causes strong immune responses in some people. This can lead to joint problems like those seen in rheumatoid arthritis.

Dr. Steere has received many awards, including two from the National Institutes of Health. One was in 1988 for discovering Lyme disease. The other was the 1999 Astute Clinician Award for his sharp observations that led to important new research.

Building on his work with Lyme arthritis, Dr. Steere is now studying how infections cause autoimmune problems in rheumatoid arthritis patients. He and his colleagues have found a link between immune responses to a common gut bacteria and certain human proteins in the joints of rheumatoid arthritis patients. This research suggests that bacteria or parts of them might sometimes reach the joints, which could help with future diagnosis and treatment.

Music

Dr. Steere has loved music for many years and studied music in college. During college and medical school, he studied violin with Ivan Galamian, a famous violin teacher. He performed violin concerts and even played in the same string quartet as the famous violinist Itzhak Perlman when they were both teenagers.

Personal Life

Dr. Steere has been married to Margaret Mercer Steere for 50 years. They have four grown children.

See also

• Lyme disease
• Lyme disease controversy
• Jorge Benach
• Willy Burgdorfer
• Spirochete