Breaking research at ADLM 2025: AI poised to revolutionize Lyme disease testing, treatment

(Press-News.org) CHICAGO — Today at ADLM 2025 (formerly the AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo), researchers will unveil a blood test developed with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) that identifies Lyme disease sooner and more accurately than the current standard — and that could translate to vastly improved patient outcomes. A second study highlights how certain generative AI tools can empower adolescents by helping them to gather useful medical information.

Together, these findings spotlight the potential of AI to make a profound, positive difference in people’s lives when thoughtfully integrated into clinical laboratory medicine.

Lyme test offers hope for early, effective treatment
Each year, more than 475,000 Americans are diagnosed with Lyme disease — a number that is only expected to climb due to climate change expanding the range of areas where ticks can live. When caught early, the condition responds well to antibiotics. However, the typical test — called two-tier serology — detects early Lyme accurately only 30% of the time. It’s a significant missed opportunity, since more than half of Lyme patients not diagnosed or treated within the first few weeks of infection will develop long-term health problems such as fatigue, neurocognitive issues, and arthritis.

The new test leverages AI to offer major improvement. Its sensitivity and specificity are both over 90%, “meaning 9 out of 10 patients are going to get a correct diagnosis and receive appropriate treatment, which lowers the risk of chronic illness significantly,” said Holly Ahern, a microbiologist and chief scientific officer at ACES Diagnostics.

Ahern and team built on research in rhesus macaque monkeys, whose immune response to the bacteria causing Lyme is similar to humans, to develop a panel that looks for 10 proteins (antigens) and is completed as a single test. This approach is an improvement over the two-tier method, which may require up to four tests.

Next, they analyzed blood samples from humans, including 123 people with Lyme disease and 197 uninfected individuals, to test whether adding machine learning to the test could bolster performance by detecting unique immune patterns. “You and I might get infected by the same bacteria, but we might both produce different antibody responses to it,” said Ahern. “With these antigens matched with a decision-tree–based classifier, we can actually pick that up in each individual case.”

The team found an algorithm that improved accuracy across all disease stages, correctly flagging infection in over 90% of early cases (versus 27% with the standard method). They hope the test — which, according to Ahern, is relatively inexpensive and works on standard laboratory equipment — will be commercially available by the end of 2026.


Medicine-GPT as an informational tool for adolescents
A second study assessed Medicine-GPT, a doctor-developed, free-to-use ChatGPT custom model. The research focused on adolescents because they tend to be early tech adopters who frequently search for information online, often on topics they don’t feel comfortable discussing with adults.

“Medicine-GPT shows promise as a powerful tool for addressing adolescent health inquiries, outperforming ChatGPT-4 in completeness, reasoning, and overall medical helpfulness,” said Austin Jin, a high school research intern at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York.

Jin and team gathered over 100 clinical questions related to lab medicine and diagnostics from Reddit’s “Ask Doctors” forum, filtering for posts by people aged 10-19 and sorted by “top” interactions. They evaluated how well the customized chatbot provided useful answers compared to its predecessor, ChatGPT-4.

Both models demonstrated complete factual accuracy, but Medicine-GPT outperformed ChatGPT-4 on other measures, achieving ratings of 66.6% for completeness, 60% for reasoning, and 46.6% for helpfulness (compared to 20%, 33.3%, and 23.3%, respectively, for ChatGPT-4). Both models received high ratings on clarity (80% for Medicine-GPT vs. 70% for ChatGPT-4).

However, a common challenge is that these tools can leave teenagers feeling overwhelmed, especially when chatbots present rare, fatal conditions as diagnostic possibilities. “This highlights the need for future AI tools to not only be medically accurate, but also context-aware, user-sensitive, and aligned with how clinicians communicate,” Jin said.“Rather than discouraging use, providers can guide adolescents on how to use these tools responsibly, emphasizing that AI … should never replace professional medical advice or personalized evaluation.”

About ADLM 2025
ADLM 2025 (formerly the AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo) offers 5 days packed with opportunities to learn about exciting science from July 27-31 in Chicago. Plenary sessions will explore urgent problems related to clinical artificial intelligence (AI) integration, fake medical news, and the pervasiveness of plastics, as well as tapping into the promise of genomics and microbiome medicine for personalized healthcare.
At the ADLM 2025 Clinical Lab Expo, more than 800 exhibitors will fill the show floor of the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, with displays of the latest diagnostic technology, including but not limited to AI, point-of-care, and automation.


About the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (ADLM)
Dedicated to achieving better health for all through laboratory medicine, ADLM (formerly AACC) unites more than 70,000 clinical laboratory professionals, physicians, research scientists, and business leaders from 110 countries around the world. Our community is at the forefront of laboratory medicine’s diverse subdisciplines, including clinical chemistry, molecular diagnostics, mass spectrometry, clinical microbiology, and data science, and is comprised of individuals holding the spectrum of lab-related professional degrees, certifications, and credentials. Since 1948, ADLM has championed the advancement of laboratory medicine by fostering scientific collaboration, knowledge sharing, and the development of innovative solutions that enhance health outcomes. For more information, visit www.myadlm.org.

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