Lab analyst Diana Wendelin gently adjusts a slide under a microscope. An enlarged image of a tick comes into focus on her computer screen.
“So, the first thing I’m looking at is called the scutum. This will tell me whether I’m looking at a male tick or female tick,” Wendelin explained. “So, because this one only goes about a third of the way down, this is a female tick.”
After Wendelin identifies a tick by its type and life stage, it goes into a tube and heads just down the hall to another room at Ohio State University’s Goss Laboratory for DNA extraction and pathogen testing…