Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series Continues With Jorge Benach on New East End Tick Findings
SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y., March 25, 2010 – As tick season is beginning on Eastern Long Island, Stony Brook University’s Dr. Jorge L. Benach will discuss the history of tick-borne diseases in our area, which is among the most endemic in the world. He will also cover the associations among the ticks of Eastern Long Island with the microbes that they carry.
Dr. Benach, a Distinguished University Professor, Director of the Center for Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook University and Chair of the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, will offer a talk titled “Tick-Borne Diseases of Eastern Long Island” as part of the Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 8, in Stony Brook Southampton's Duke Lecture Hall. The event is hosted by Stony Brook Southampton Dean and Vice President Mary Pearl.
He will provide the latest figures on the prevalence of tick-borne diseases in our environment.
Dr. Benach brought recognition to the Stony Brook School of Medicine in 1983 when he made the landmark discovery of the organism that causes Lyme Disease that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
As the Director of the Center for Infectious Diseases in the Centers for Molecular Medicine, Dr. Benach overlooks basic and applied research on how microbes cause disease, as well as how the body fights off infection. His research career has focused on the area of vector-borne diseases, particularly in the area of spirochetal infections.
This department at Stony Brook University has been a home for world-class research programs in areas ranging from microbial pathogenesis and model organism genetics to cancer biology. The mission of the department is to advance the knowledge of the fundamental causes of human diseases.
Dr. Benach is a past Fulbright Scholar. He served as a member of the Advisory Council of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 1997 to 2001. He presently holds a Merit Research Award from the NIH.
More Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series Events
The Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series continues with Michael Balick, Vice President for Botanical Science, Director and Philecology Curator, New York Botanical Garden Institute of Economic Botany, on April 29, speaking on “Ancient Wisdom and Modern Medicine: Plants, People, and Cultures in the Tropical Rainforest.”
Events are on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. in Duke Lecture Hall and are free and open to the public. For further information, call 631-632-5028.
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