MANHATTAN — Roman Ganta, director of the Center of Excellence for Vector-Borne Diseases in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University, has received a $3.681 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue his longtime work on tick-borne diseases.
The grant supports Ganta's research into vaccine development for Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a disease with high mortality rates — 30 to 80% — and primarily caused by the bite of a tick infected with Rickettsia rickettsii. This pathogen infects both dogs and people in the United States and is prevalent in Mexico, Central America and South America.
"Unless some of these infections are diagnosed quickly and treated, death can occur within a short timeframe," Ganta said. " Infections are often misdiagnosed as people may not always realize ticks have bitten them. That makes it very important to have vaccines that can be used to prevent infections."
Recent vaccine studies under Ganta's direction demonstrated the feasibility of vaccine development preventing severe Rocky Mountain spotted fever. The goals of the currently funded project are to define a broadly applicable vaccine with long-lasting protection.