Where are you most likely to find the Asian longhorned tick? In the woods, in a field, in a swampy area? That’s the research question a rising senior at Fordham is pursuing this summer, shining a light on an invasive tick species that has been proliferating in the U.S. since 2017.
In light of diseases they carry, “It’s important to keep an eye on them and see where they could potentially live,” said Cream Sananikone, a natural science major at Fordham College at Lincoln Center. The ticks feed on a variety of animals, including pets, and have been found on people as well. They carry diseases including anaplasmosis and babesiosis, and are known to pass potentially deadly infections to livestock, although they’re not yet known to infect people, she said.
Sananikone is one of seven Fordham students taking part in the summer undergraduate research program at Fordham’s Louis Calder Center. Every year, the program provides funding and lodging for student researchers at the center, a 113-acre biological field station in Armonk, New York, where they have access to a variety of watery and woodsy habitats.
Ticks are a longstanding research topic at the Calder Center, where researchers publish the Fordham Tick Index, a measure of the risk of being bitten by a deer tick—a carrier of Lyme disease.
For her project, Sananikone collects ticks in different habitats on the Calder grounds—always donning protective clothing—and analyzes them in an on-site lab. She plans to earn a combined medical degree and master’s degree in public health after graduation and return to Laos, where she’s from, to work on public health efforts in communities with heavy rates of insect-borne diseases.
The summer at Calder is helping to lay the groundwork for her career. “You get to spend time with amazing people who are doing different types of research and get to know more about what they do,” she said. “You get to build meaningful connections.”