As cases of alpha-gal syndrome continue to rise on the Island, the first local center to study the condition is set to be opened by the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, in partnership with Boston’s Mass General Hospital (MGH).
The multi-million dollar research center, the cost of which the hospital didn’t specify, is scheduled to open Oct. 1. It will focus on alpha-gal diagnosis, treatment, and research and be located in West Tisbury at the former location of the Indian Hill Medical Center, which the hospital purchased for $1.85 million on Oct. 31, 2025.
Claire Seguin, Martha’s Vineyard Hospital president and chief operating officer, said she wants to establish the center as part of the hospital’s efforts to increase its healthcare options for tick-borne conditions and reduce strain on the emergency room. Another effort spearheaded by Seguin is the hospital’s new Express Care and Tick Clinic, which opened on June 15, and primarily provides treatment, through appointments, for individuals bitten by ticks. As of July 22, the clinic’s seen 175 patients for tick bites and 136 for minor injuries and ailments since it opened.
“We noticed that a lot of the care was landing in our emergency department. As we get busier and busier, we want to avoid that if we can and keep the emergency department for true emergencies,” Seguin said about tick-related visits. “It was really to bring more access to care in general for our Island community.”
This research center, however, would be only focused on the emergence of alpha-gal.
Alpha-gal syndrome, an allergic response to mammalian products like meat and dairy that can occur between three to twelve hours after consumption, is caused by the transmission of the alpha-gal sugar molecule into an individual’s bloodstream through a lone star tick bite. The molecule, which is naturally found in most mammals besides humans, can be perceived as a threat by the immune system, which then develops immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies. The presence of these antibodies can trigger an allergic reaction when mammalian products are consumed.
Individuals that suffer from alpha-gal syndrome can experience mild to life-threatening symptoms — from hives, rashes, and gastrointestinal issues to anaphylaxis. The duration of symptoms can last a couple of years or become chronic, and those details along with other unknowns, are a part of the information gap that the hospital seeks to fill.
In 2020, the hospital cataloged two positive alpha-gal test results, and in 2025, positive results spiked to 742. And in recent months as the allergy garnered national attention, efforts have sprung up from both locals, such through Tick Free MV, and politicians as high up as the secretary of Health and Human Services.
In an email to The Times, Seguin outlined the details of the two-phase research plan for the center. The first phase involves a prospective cohort study, which would enlist 300 subjects who have been bitten by a lone star tick. The emergence of alpha-gal symptoms and IgE antibodies would be monitored, and their symptoms, exposure, and demographics collected. The first patients are set for enrollment later this month.
The second phase entails a seroprevalence survey to study the presence of IgE antibodies in people on the Island and compare those levels to other communities in Massachusetts. Approximately 1,000 individuals would participate, and the study is set to begin later in the summer.
The research will be funded through private donations to start, Seguin wrote, which she hopes will help the center secure grant funding in the future.
Many Islanders that suffer from alpha-gal syndrome are optimistic about the new center.
Greg Clark, 23, who was diagnosed with alpha-gal four years ago, emphasized how many of his friends with the condition struggle to cope.
“Half of my friends have it now, and they don’t really know how to deal with it,” Clark said. “A lot of people don’t know how to handle it, so having some research done on it would be useful.”
Susan Austin, 73, described her hives from alpha-gal as being like “a mouse was underneath [her] skin running.” She said that she hopes for the center’s success.
“It’s hard for them because different people have it differently and different extremes of it. I’m interested to hear if they have solutions,” Austin said.
Others, however, expressed uncertainty about the center’s success.
Deana Ahearn, 55, who founded the Facebook support group MV Alpha gals in 2024, expressed worry about how knowledgeable some of the staff may be. Although she said she’s appreciative, Ahearn said that she is wary after a past experience with a nurse practitioner who was unaware about the possibility of fume reactions from cooking mammal meat.
“A lot of us are petrified to go to the hospital because most everything in there has mammal
in it and can really make us sick,” Ahearn said. “I really am grateful to be able to have this clinic. But I really hope they pull from all resources and really educate people and keep following what’s going on with alpha-gal. We need it more than ever here.”The issue of ticks is multi-faceted, and the new center at the hospital is one of a few large and well-funded efforts to mitigate the presence of the small arachnids.
The center’s physician research lead is Dr. Jacob Lemieux. He’s a Harvard-medical school graduate and infectious disease doctor at MGH who focuses on Lyme disease. Lemieux heads up MGH’s multidisciplinary Lyme and Infectious Disease clinic. Lemieux told The Times that he wants to apply the methods of the Boston clinic to address the rising numbers of alpha-gal cases on the Island.
“[Boston] is really not a hotspot for tick-borne disease, so our urgent care clinic is actually not in the right place,” Lemieux said. “We had this ready-made concept and a lot of the pathways were ready to be modified and then deployed [to Martha’s Vineyard]. I’m thrilled that this sister clinic approach has worked effectively.”
Lemieux emphasized the importance of both research and clinical care at the center.
“The reality is that we have to walk and chew bubble gum at the same time,” Lemieux said. “Which is to say we have to deal with the emergence of the disease.”
Lemieux said that one of his research objectives is to understand the prevalence of alpha-gal syndrome and its antibodies.
“There’s so much in the news about how severe things are — from tick sightings to the number of alpha-gal tests being sent — but what we don’t have complete information on is truly how common at a population level these antibodies are,” Lemieux said.
Lemieux also wants to investigate the risk factors of development of alpha-gal after a tick bite, such as the duration of time that the tick was attached to the host, tick species, life cycle stage, and the types of pathogens carried by the tick.
“Understanding these risk factors is important to predict who’s at risk from developing the syndrome,” Lemieux said. “Hopefully we can modify [the risk factors] to prevent the development of the disease.”
Lea Hamner, the Island’s only tick epidemiologist, said that she has consulted with officials from the Island hospital and MGH about the center. She expressed enthusiasm about the project.
“I’m very excited that they’re entering the research space,” Hamner said. “Being able to leverage the quality of clinical research that [the MGH] system can support here locally is huge.”
Hamner highlighted the general openness of individuals with alpha-gal on the Island and said she also hopes to discover more about the syndrome from its prevalence on-Island.
“People want to tell you about their tick-borne experience and help find answers. There’s no stigma attached to tick-borne illness, and so people are really participatory when it comes to this field compared to other lines of work that I’ve been in,” Hamner said. “The lemonade out of lemons is to learn more about the allergy from what’s happening [on the Island] … and to derive some meaning from this experience.”
Hamner, who also runs the Alpha-gal Syndrome Support Group, underscored the negative psychological toll that comes from the condition.
“If you have reactions, especially severe reactions, you start then being more cautious and having more adaptive behaviors to keep yourself safe, which then can lead to less participation in social activities … because you’re concerned for your own safety,” Hamner said.
