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A lab at Nova Scotia’s Acadia University will get $1.2 million from the provincial government to continue researching the prevention and management of tick-borne illnesses.
“These funds were absolutely essential for starting to build up this lab,” said Nicoletta Faraone, who leads the Canadian Tick Research and Innovation Centre.
She said the lab will use the money for its surveillance program, which examines what types of ticks are in the province, what pathogens they carry and how they respond to repellents or attractants.
The blood-sucking arachnids can transmit a variety of diseases to humans through their bites, such as Lyme disease and anaplasmosis.
Faraone said the lab has state-of-the-art equipment that will speed up the pathogen-testing process.
“This is overall to learn more about ticks and also to be more prepared in terms of reducing exposure to a tick bite,” said Faraone.
The funding comes from Research Nova Scotia’s Focused Research Initiative, which is funded by the Department of Advanced Education.
“Tick-borne diseases are an increasingly important challenge for people and animals and addressing them requires research that can move beyond the lab and into practical use,” Research Nova Scotia CEO Stefan Leslie said in a news release.
According to the latest data collected by the Public Health Agency of Canada, in 2024 there were over 5,800 reported cases of Lyme disease across the country and 2,350 of those were reported in Nova Scotia, accounting for 40 per cent of cases nationally.
Other tick-borne illnesses are also on the rise, like anaplasmosis, a bacterial infection spread by the bite of blacklegged ticks (deer ticks) and brown dog ticks.
When Nova Scotia began listing anaplasmosis as a notifiable disease in 2023, it logged 317 cases. Last year, that number was 681.
Funding will support tick breeding
According to Acadia University, the federal government is also contributing $455,000 to the project through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
The funding announced Tuesday will allow the lab to continue its work to breed its own ticks.
Until now, the Acadia lab had to purchase its ticks from the only known tick-breeding facility in North America at Oklahoma State University for $5 each.
The ability to breed ticks locally at the Acadia lab will allow researchers to study the genetic makeup of Canadian ticks. The breeding program will also be a revenue generator, said Faraone, who plans to sell the specimens to other tick researchers across Canada and abroad.
Faraone said the tickery is up and running with ticks collected through the fall, spring and summer.
“They are laying eggs. So we are monitoring the best environmental condition for having the colonies to basically multiply.”
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