Out hiking? Find a tick on your pet? Don't throw it out, save it for University researchers who are studying the spread of Lyme disease.

Pennsylvanians may soon have a better understanding of Lyme disease and how to avoid it. Three researchers in the University's department of entomology have recently begun a three-year study into how Lyme disease, common in the Northeastern United States, is spread.

The study will focus primarily on ticks, because ticks are the primary vectors of the disease, said University professor of entomology Robert Snetsinger, one of the researchers involved in the study. Other vectors also will be studied. A disease vector is an organism that passes a disease-causing agent from one host to another.

Tick collection kits have been sent out to all the county agricultural extension agents in Pennsylvania, Snetsinger said. He added that he would like people to send in any ticks to their local extension agent, who will forward them to Snetsinger.

The ticks will be tested to see what species they are, and the live ones will be tested for spirochetes. If the ticks are found to be infected, the extension agents will inform the person who brought in the ticks.

Local extension agents are being asked to supply other information about the ticks, such as where they were found and where the tick might have come from, Snetsinger said. With this information, Snetsinger said he hopes to learn more about the life cycle of the tick and about how the disease spreads.

"We would like to know the distribution of the tick and of the cases of disease so we can see if there is a pattern to the disease," Snetsinger said.

However, chances of wiping out the disease seem slim, he said.

"To eliminate the tick, it's going to be very difficult," Snetsinger said.

Anyone who finds a tick may forward it to him at 106 Patterson Building, Snetsinger said.

Lyme disease, first discovered in the town of Lyme, Conn. in 1975, has been reported in 43 states. More than 3,000 cases were reported last year in the United States, according to Durlam Fish, director of the medical entomology lab at the New York College of Medicine. Lyme disease is more common in the Northeast, and endemic in parts of New York and Connecticut, Fish said.

Lyme disease is caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, a spirochete or coiled bacterium, which lives in infected ticks or other hosts.

Difficult to diagnose, Lyme disease is usually spread by ticks, which first feed from an infected animal, and then at a later stage in their life cycle feed from and infect humans or animals.