Allen Steere facts for kids

Allen Caruthers Steere is an American doctor who specializes in rheumatology. This field of medicine focuses on diseases that affect joints, muscles, and bones. He teaches at Harvard University and used to teach at Tufts University and Yale University.

Dr. Steere and his mentor, Stephen Malawista, are famous for finding and naming Lyme disease. He has written nearly 300 articles about this infection over more than 40 years. In 1998, the Governor of Connecticut even named September 24 "Allen C. Steere Day" to honor his work.

About Dr. Steere

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

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

His Career Path

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, Dr. Steere has focused on Lyme disease. He helped describe the illness, create tests for it, and find ways to treat it. He also helped test the first vaccine to prevent Lyme disease.

Discovering Lyme Disease

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

A health officer named David R. Snydman contacted Dr. Steere at Yale. They had worked together before at the CDC. Dr. Snydman thought this cluster of illnesses was worth investigating.

Investigating the Outbreak

Dr. Steere met with Ms. Murray, who gave him a list of affected children. He called each family and found 39 children and 12 adults with similar symptoms.

About a quarter of these people remembered getting a strange, spreading skin rash. This rash is called erythema migrans. A doctor visiting Yale from Europe noted that this rash was common in northern Europe and linked to tick bites. Most rashes were on the body, suggesting a crawling insect like a tick, even if people didn't remember being bitten.

Finding the Cause

In 1976, Dr. Steere tested blood samples from patients. He looked for antibodies against many known tick-borne diseases, but all tests were negative. As more cases were found in Connecticut and nearby states, they realized this was a wider problem.

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

The discovery of erythema migrans in the U.S. patients helped connect "Lyme arthritis" to the tick-borne disease known in Europe. The illness found in and around Lyme and Old Lyme, Connecticut, was first called "Lyme arthritis" and later "Lyme disease."

In 1980, Dr. Steere and his team began testing antibiotic treatments for Lyme disease patients. He also published early work on how Lyme disease could affect the nervous system and heart.

The Lyme Vaccine

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 1999.

The research for Lymerix took four years. It involved 11,000 patients and 31 scientists across ten states.

How the Vaccine Worked

Lymerix worked by targeting a protein called Osp-A on the outside of the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria, which causes Lyme disease. The vaccine helped the body's immune system create antibodies to fight this protein.

Tests showed the vaccine was about 78 percent effective. It was given in three shots over a year. However, there were some concerns about its long-term safety, especially for people with certain health conditions.

Why the Vaccine Was Removed

In 2002, GSK decided to stop selling Lymerix. This was for business reasons, not because it was unsafe. Sales were low, the vaccine was expensive, and it couldn't be given to children under 15. Also, people needed frequent booster shots.

Experts like Stanley Plotkin predicted that this withdrawal meant there might not be another Lyme disease vaccine for a long time.

Current Research

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

He and his team have found new proteins that the immune system targets in these patients. They have developed a way to treat these patients. After antibiotics, they might receive medicines that calm the immune system, similar to treatments for rheumatoid arthritis.

Exploring Immune Responses

His current studies are funded by the National Institutes of Health. He wants to understand how the Lyme disease bacteria causes too much immune response in some people. This can lead to joint damage similar to other types of arthritis.

Dr. Steere has received several awards for his work. In 1988, he was honored for discovering Lyme disease. In 1999, he received the Astute Clinician Award for his important observations that opened new research paths.

He is also studying how infections might cause rheumatoid arthritis. He and his colleagues found a link between immune responses to a common gut bacteria and certain human proteins in joints. This suggests that parts of the bacteria might sometimes reach the joints and cause problems. These findings could help with future diagnosis and treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

Music in His Life

Dr. Steere has loved music for many years. He even majored in music in college. During college and medical school, he studied violin with Ivan Galamian, a famous violin teacher.

He performed violin concerts with David Garvey, who was the pianist for the famous singer Leontyne Price. As a teenager, he even played in a string quartet with the amazing violinist Itzhak Perlman. Music is still a very important part of his life today.

Personal Life

Dr. Steere has been married to Margaret Mercer Steere for 50 years. They have four grown children, and all of them now have their own families.

See also

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