Dr. Neelakanta’s laboratory at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville researches human and animal tick-borne diseases such as human anaplasmosis, Lyme disease, relapsing fever, and Rickettsiosis. His laboratory has characterized some of the tick and bacterial molecules that could be potentially implemented in the development of vaccines against tick-borne diseases. The immediate goal for his laboratory is to test vaccine efficacy of these molecules in animal models. Currently, Dr. Neelakanta’s research is funded with a NIH R01 award. Before moving to UTK as a tenured Associate professor, Dr. Neelakanta served as an Associate research scientist at Yale University School of Medicine, CT, and as an Assistant and Associate professor with tenure at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA. Current research from his laboratory at UTCVM are focused in understanding various aspects of vector-borne diseases that include studies on understanding molecular aspects of host-pathogen interactions, development of vaccines, and vector biology.