Community Organizations
Timothy Sellati chief scientific officer GlA 09-30-17

Global Lyme Alliance Names New Chief Scientific Officer

By |
Download PDF

Greenwich-based Global Lyme Alliance (GLA), one of the largest nonprofit organizations dedicated to conquering Lyme disease, recently announced the appointment of Timothy J. Sellati, Ph.D. as its chief scientific officer. ________

— This announcement, slightly edited, is from the Global Lyme Alliance. ________

A noted immunologist and microbiologist, Dr. Sellati has more than 20 years of research experience with Lyme and other tick-borne diseases. He has published more than 20 peer-reviewed papers and is frequently invited to speak about his cutting-edge research and tick-borne disease at national scientific meetings. Today he is considered one of the nation’s foremost experts in the search to understand infectious disease processes and improve treatments of patients suffering from those illnesses.

Community Organizations

What One Darien Family Went Through When Their Son Got Lyme Disease

By |
Download PDF

At a gala fundraising event in front of about 500 guests, including celebrities — a former Fox News host (Gretchen Carlson), a singer (Marina Morgan), a novelist (Jay McInerny), a mixed martial artist (Jim Miller), U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and U.S. Rep. Jim Himes — the entire crowd gradually became silent as Tara Vessels of Darien stood at the podium and spoke, her voice sometimes cracking with emotion. Vessel, one of the event chairs at the Global Lyme Alliance’s “Greenwich Gala” on Saturday night, reminded them all why they were there. She spoke about how her son getting Lyme disease at age 12 changed his life and the lives of his parents. “If I was a high school student suffering from Lyme disease and was writing a college essay for admissions, the title would be ‘Sidelined,'” the Darien mother said. “This is what happened to our very healthy, happy, energetic, 12-year-old son, Chase, almost seven years ago.”

Community Organizations
Robyn Carpenter Tara Vessels Global Lyme Alliance Lyme Disease 03-17-17

Darien Moms Speak Out to Help Fight Lyme Disease

By |
Download PDF

Two Darien women know all too well that each of us is just one tick bite away from being profoundly affected by Lyme disease. Tara Vessels and Robyn Carpenter have both had their lives upended by the tick-borne illness. Vessels put her fashion business on hold to care for her son when he went from “being a happy and energetic 12-year old to someone completely sidelined by this disease,” she said. ___________

— an announcement from Global Lyme Alliance

___________

“He was a great athlete and student, but for six years he’s been so ill that he’s been in and out of schools and forced to stop playing sports. He basically lost a lot of his childhood.”

Meanwhile, Carpenter, a homemaker, says she went from being “healthy and active my entire life” to being “affected so dramatically that I was paralyzed and couldn’t walk, couldn’t drive, couldn’t function the way I always had.”

She was initially misdiagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and underwent five procedures to remove fluid from her knees, cortisone shots, high-dose steroids and surgery.