Deer blood combats Lyme disease.

The blood of white-tailed deer has been found to efficiently kill the bacteria causing Lyme disease, according to a study by the New England Center of Excellence in Vector-Borne Diseases. The Lyme disease bacterium is passed to juvenile blacklegged deer ticks from the mice these arthropods feed on, with the infected ticks then passing on the bacterium to humans. The scientists aim to determine the precise mechanisms in the deer blood which kill the Lyme-causing bacteria, and test whether such defense mechanisms could be induced in humans too.