Kelly Weinersmith here! The third round of the #SciFund Challenge has begun! There are some really amazing projects this round, and you can find them here.

There are a few parasite/pathogen related projects this round, which of course has me quite excited.

This project studies the ecology of Lyme disease in California, and seeks to link this ecological information to human risk of Lyme disease infection:

This project by Will Helenbrook looks at how interactions between humans and primates influences disease transmission. Will does a fantastic job of explaining the importance of his research: “How important is this? One out 4 people in the world will die from an infectious disease and 75% of newly emerging diseases are found in both people and animals. Furthermore, 40% of emerging tropical infectious diseases originate in primates. Clearly, the impact of wildlife disease on people is huge! Well, if we can understand those factors that increase disease transmission, then we can potentially reduce the impact of infectious diseases on human and wildlife health.”

I’m also pretty pumped about Elisabeth Whyte’s project. Elisabeth is an avid player of World of Warcraft, and is using her skills as a gamer to develop more effective treatments for kids with autism.

If you have some extra dough and want to spend it on SCIENCE, then bounce on over and support the #SciFund Challenge!

This post originally appeared on the Weinersmith Blog.