Alison Rebman, MPH earned her graduate degree from Columbia University in Sociomedical Sciences. She is currently an assistant professor in the Division of Rheumatology within the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. She is also the Co-Director for Clinical and Epidemiological Research at the Johns Hopkins Lyme Disease Research Center. Alison has specific research interests in chronic and infectious diseases, and sex and gender-based differences in health, with a focus on underserved populations and/or medically contested conditions. She began working in the Lyme disease field in 2008 when she helped launch the SLICE studies with Dr. John Aucott. She has co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters across a variety of disciplines within the field of Lyme disease and Lyme infection-associated illnesses.

Illness invalidation, by medical professionals or others, is a common experience for patients with Lyme disease. This talk will discuss recent scientific articles in Lyme and other illnesses about the patient effects of invalidation. It will also discuss the gendered history of invalidation and how it influences the medical encounter today.

Please join us as we welcome back physician-scientist John Aucott, MD, Director of the Johns Hopkins Medicine Lyme Disease Research Center, for his 8th annual update and keynote talk to the Lyme Care Resource Center. Dr. Aucott will be discussing research advances in Lyme Disease and Tickborne Diseases, including an update on diagnostics, biomarker discovery, dysautonomia, advanced neuroimaging, and future treatments. Dr. Aucott is the Barbara Townsend Cromwell Professor in Lyme Disease and Tickborne Illness, an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Rheumatology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the Director of the Johns Hopkins Medicine Lyme Disease Research Center. Please join us for this valuable opportunity to learn from a renowned expert in Lyme disease. We encourage you to invite your family, friends, and health practitioners to participate in this informative livestream event.

Dr. Robert C. Bransfield, MD, graduated from Rutgers College and George Washington University School of Medicine. His residency training was at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital. He is board-certified in Psychiatry and is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Dr. Bransfield’s clinical activities have focused upon treating patients who are considered to be treatment-resistant. Many of these patients were found to have infectious disease contributors to their psychiatric symptoms. As a result, his research has often focused upon the association between infectious disease and mental illness. Lyme/tick-borne diseases are a complex interactive infections that can result in significant neuropsychiatric symptoms. The association between microbes and mental illness shall be reviewed with a greater attention to Lyme/tick-borne diseases. Pathophysiology, assessment and treatment shall be discussed.