- Jorge Benach
Jorge Benach is a medical researcher at the
State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook inNew York state. Benach is the chair of the Department ofMolecular Genetics andMicrobiology . Benach's main area of research is the tick bornespirochete Borrelia burgdorferi which is the causative agent ofLyme disease .Benach also has begun to investigate organisms that could be used as
bioterrorism agents, specificallyFrancisella tularensis , the bacterial agent oftularemia .Benach graduated with a PhD from
Rutgers University in 1972. Benach was named to a National Advisory Allergy and Infectious Diseases Council (NIAID) in 1998 and was named a 1992 Fulbright-Hays Fellow and Exchange Professor.Lyme Disease Research
Benach was one of the early researchers in Lyme disease. Benach and Edward Bosler, Ph.D. collaborated in the dogged and dangerous work of gathering and testing ticks for disease-causing pathogens in 1981 at the Mashomack Preserve on Shelter Island, off the coast of New York. Benach and colleagues at Stonybrook were of the first researchers to identify the role of the spirochete in Lyme Disease. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9E02E6DF1239F93BA25752C1A964948260&n=Top%2fNews%2fHealth%2fDiseases%2c%20Conditions%2c%20and%20Health%20Topics%2fLyme%20Disease] New York Times, "MYSTERY OF LYME DISEASE IS BELIEVED SOLVED" November 18, 1982]
Benach and Bosler went on to co-author the book "Lyme Disease and Related Disease Disorders", New York Academy of Sciences (September 1988).
Benach and
pathology colleague Marc Golightly developed the critical laboratory test to detect the presence ofantibodies to Borrelia burgdorferi, anELISA test that became the original “gold standard” for Lyme diagnosis.Benach continues to work with borrelia organisms at the Center for Infectious Diseases, Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Stony Brook University. Benach chairs the scientific and advisory board of the Tick-Borne Disease Institute of the New York State department of health and is an ad-hoc committee member of the National Research Fund for Tick-Borne Diseases.
References
ee also
*
Allen Steere
*Willy Burgdorfer External links
* [http://www.uhmc.sunysb.edu/cid/benach2.html Stonybrook Center for Infectious Diseases]
* [http://www.nrftd.org/ National Research Fund of Tick-Borne Diseases]
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