Willy Burgdorfer

Willy Burgdorfer (* June 27, 1925 in Basel) is an American physician and bacteriologist Swiss descent.

Life and work

After schooling Burgdorfer studied from 1944 at the University of Basel and received his PhD in 1952 on the transmission of tick relapsing fever by soft ticks.

He then moved to the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton (Montana ), where he took a job after the adoption of the U.S. citizenship in 1957.

In the U.S., he did research first about the Q- fever and other parasitic zoonoses then turned to. In 1982, he was able to identify the long-sought causative agent of Lyme disease, which was then named as " Borrelia burgdorferi " after him. He joined in 1986 to retire and is the recipient of numerous awards.