Mystery Solved Health & Medicine

Finally, there’s a way to keep syphilis growing in the lab

Inspiration for the breakthrough came from the bacterium that causes Lyme disease

Treponema pallidum

GROWTH SPURT Scientists have finally figured out how to culture curly syphilis-causing bacteria (shown, colorized) using rabbit epithelial cells and a special growth medium.

Roinujs/Wikimedia Commons; Source: David Cox/CDC

By Leah Rosenbaum

- More than 2 years ago

For more than a century, scientists have tried to grow Treponema pallidum, the corkscrew-shaped bacterium that causes syphilis.