The MSIDS Foundation

Our mission

The MSIDS Foundation exists to advance research into the root causes of chronic illness and to support new models that improve diagnosis, treatment, and long-term outcomes.

We focus on conditions that are often misunderstood, underfunded, or treated in isolation, including:

Lyme disease
Alzheimer’s disease
Autism Spectrum Disorder
ADHD
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME, Fibromyalgia
Long Covid
Neuroinflammatory and complex chronic conditions

The MSIDS Foundation was founded by Richard Horowitz, a physician and researcher with decades of experience treating complex chronic illness.

Through years of clinical practice, Dr. Horowitz observed a consistent pattern:
Patients weren’t just dealing with one issue. They were dealing with multiple overlapping factors that traditional models didn’t fully address.

This led to the development of the MSIDS model, now supported by:

His work continues to push the boundaries of how chronic disease is understood and treated.

Our Leadership

Past President, Emily Fairbairn

We thank Emily for her generosity and support in helping us to set up our Foundation!

Past VP: Eric Hutchinson
Past Treasurer: Hale Furey
Past Board Member: Tom Brady Sr.

We thank all of our past members for their support!

Board Members:

James Bruzzese

Acting President since 2021

2nd year anesthesiology resident, Sophie Davis School of Medicine, NYC

Holly Ahern

VP. Assistant

Professor Microbiology – SUNY Adirondack, Queensbury, NY

Susan Marra

Treasurer

Dr. Susan L. Marra is an adult and pediatric Lyme disease specialist with over 25 years of experience as a clinician, and over 32 years in the health care industry. She has trained with world-leading Lyme disease specialists (Dr. Richard Horowitz and Dr. Charles Ray Jones) on the east coast and has practiced both on the east (Connecticut) and west coasts (Seattle). She has a BS and MS in Psychology, with an emphasis in Psychobiology, and received her ND degree from Bastyr University.

Prior to attending Bastyr, she worked at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and at the University of Pennsylvania in brain and behavior research. Dr. Marra has been an ILADS member since 2001.

She has extensive experience in treating tick-borne illness in both children and adults, and uses an integrated medicine approach to help her patients heal. She was the first Naturopathic doctor to receive an ILADS preceptorship from the Turn the Corner Foundation where she trained with Dr. Horowitz in Hyde Park, NY. Dr. Marra has been successful in overcoming her own battle with Lyme disease when she contracted it in 2001 while living and practicing in Westport Connecticut. Of note, she never found a tick bite and did not have a bullseye rash.

She is also Board Certified and a Fellow in Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine through the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine and is a Fellow in Metabolic Medicine through the Metabolic Medical Institute. She is also recently certified in nutritional genomics consulting through the Nutrigenetic Research Institute. Dr. Marra uses a variety of skills to help her patients heal from tick-borne illness, and believes that nutrigenomics is paving the way for a better understanding of the epigenetic environmental factors that contribute to people becoming ill with tick-borne illness. In April of 2021, Dr. Marra was asked to be a Medical Advisory Board member for Global Lyme Alliance. In July 2022, Dr. Marra was elected to the board of Dr. Richard Horowitz’s non-profit research organization, MSIDS Research Foundation.

Holiday Goodreau

311 Fairfax Street, Denver, CO 80220

Co-founder of the LivLyme Foundation in CO

Hilton Schlosberg

CEO Monster Beverage

Tammy Crawford

Co-founder of Focus on Lyme in AZ

Tom Kaplan

Dr. Thomas S. Kaplan is the Chairman of precious metals-focused asset management firm The Electrum Group; past President and Chairman of 92NY, Manhattan’s premier cultural and community center; Founder and former Executive Chairman of Panthera, the global leader in big cat conservation; Founder of The Leiden Collection, the world’s largest private collection of Rembrandt and Dutch Golden Age art; and past Chairman of the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage (ALIPH), a multilateral organization led by France and UAE. Dr. Kaplan earned his Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degrees in modern history from Oxford University.

Prof. Christian Perronne, MD, PhD

Prior Chief of the Department of Medicine, Infectious and tropical diseases unit.

University Hospital Raymond Poincaré

104 Boulevard Raymond Poincaré, 92380 Garches, France

Born in 1955, MD, PhD, is a retired Professor of Infectious and tropical diseases, University of Versailles-Paris Saclay, France. From 1994 to 2020, he was head of medical department in a University hospital in the Greater Paris public hospitals group. He had high responsabilities in several official institutions :

Institut Pasteur, Paris (Vice-director of the National Reference Center on tuberculosis).
College of the French Professors of infectious and tropical diseases (CMIT), (President).
National Immunization technical advisory group (CTV), France (Chairman).
French Drug Agency (ex-AFSSAPS, ANSM) (Chairman of several advisory groups).
Superior Council for Public Hygiene of France (President).
High Council for Public Health (HCSP), (President of the Communicable diseases commission)
INSERM (French National Institute for Health and Medical Research.
National council of universities (President of the Infectious and tropical diseases section).
European Technical Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (ETAGE), World Health Organization, (Vice-chairman).

He published more than 300 scientific articles in international peer reviewed medical journals. He published a book, in French, about Lyme disease and other crypto-infections : “La vérité sur la maladie de Lyme”, 2019 (second edition), Odile Jacob publisher, Paris.

Since 2000, Christian Perronne is fighting for the recognition of chronic Lyme disease, asking for funding research on accurate diagnostic tests and validation of efficient therapeutic strategies.

Duvi Honig

Founder and CEO, Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce

Duvi Honig is the Founder and CEO of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce, a Wall Street-based organization bridging government, business, and global leaders to drive economic and policy impact. He leads national coalitions and high-level partnerships across sectors, and spearheads Life for Lyme, advancing federal awareness and prevention efforts on tick-borne diseases—an initiative shaped by both leadership and personal experience.

Ester Honig

Co-Founder, Life for Lyme

Garth Nicolson,PhD

Biologist/Scientist

Professor Emeritus Garth L. Nicolson is the Founder, President, Chief Scientific Officer and Emeritus Professor of Molecular Pathology at the Institute for Molecular Medicine in Huntington Beach, California. He is also a Conjoint Emeritus Professor at the University of Newcastle (Aust.). He was previously the David Bruton Jr. Chair, and Professor and Chairman at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, and Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Medical School, Houston. Professor Nicolson has published over 700 medical and scientific papers, edited 20 books, and served on the editorial boards of 30 medical and scientific journals, and he was senior editor of four of these. He is the coauthor of the Fluid-Mosaic Model of Cell Membranes (Science, 1972), now the textbook model of biological membranes. Professor Nicolson has won many awards, such as the Burroughs Wellcome Medal of the Royal Society of Medicine (U.K), U.S. National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award, Stephen Paget Award of the Metastasis Research Society, Innovative Medicine Award of Canada, and the EU Academy of Sciences. He is also a Colonel (O6, honorary) of the U.S. Army and an Honorary U.S. Navy Seal for his work on Armed Forces and veterans’ illnesses.

ScholarGPS International Rankings (2025):

Cell Membranes, no. 1
Cell Membrane Structure, no. 2
Cancer Metastasis, no. 2
Tumor Progression, no. 10
Tumor Invasion, no. 29
Molecular and Cell Biology, no. 53

Research Affiliates:

Dr Richard Horowitz

Board Certified Internal Medicine; Medical Director, Hudson Valley Healing Arts Center, Hyde Park, N.Y. 12538; Prior member of the HHS Tick-borne Disease Working Group; Prior member of the NY State Dept of Health Tick-borne Working Group

Dr. Richard Horowitz is a board-certified internist and the medical director of the Hudson Valley Healing Arts Center, an integrative medical center which combines both mainstream and integrative approaches in the treatment of Lyme disease and other tick-borne disorders. He has treated over 13,000 Lyme and tick-borne disease patients in the last 41 years, with patients coming from all over the world to his clinic. He is one of the founding members and past president elect of ILADS, the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society and founding member of the MSIDS Research Foundation as well as a prior member of the HHS Tick-borne Disease Working Group and the NY State Dept of Health Tick-borne Working Group. After publishing NY Times and National Bestselling science books (Why Can’t I Get Better? and How Can I Get Better? St Martins Press) on diagnosing and effectively treating chronic Lyme disease and associated co-infections, he will be releasing his third science book on comprehensive answers for chronic disease October 2026 through Simon and Schuster, called ‘Ending Chronic Illness: A Revolutionary New Program to Reverse Inflammation and Heal Persistent Disease’. After a one year intensive dive into the scientific literature, Dr H discovered that the 16 point MSIDS model that he pioneered for the diagnosis and treatment of chronic Lyme disease also applies to most chronic diseases affecting humanity which are causing suffering and disability. Ending Chronic Illness will provide innovative scientific solutions for both the prevention and treatment of diseases including but not limited to ADD/ADHD, Autism, Alzheimer’s disease, allergies and asthma, the 3 B’s (Borrelia, Babesia, Bartonella), cardiovascular disease, cancer, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/M.E., digestive disorders, environmental toxicity, Fibromyalgia, hormonal, mood and pain disorders as well as acute and chronic viral infections. His recent grounbreaking article published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease Reports in April 2026 demonstrated for the first time that all 16 MSIDS factors are associated with Alzheimer’s disease, and he proved the infection-amyloid-p-tau hypothesis by reversing Alzheimer’s biomarkers in a patient with chronic Lyme disease/PTLDS for the first time ever in the medical literature. The MSIDS Foundation and Dr H plans on working with university based researchers to design a multicenter, placebo-controlled, randomized trial using dapsone combination therapy and the MSIDS model to prove that we have new solutions for two overlapping epidemics.

Dr Phyllis Freeman, PhD

Senior researcher, Hudson Valley Healing Arts Center, Hyde Park, N.Y. 12538. Professor Emeritus, Psychology, State University of New Paltz

What the MSIDS Foundation supports?

The MSIDS Foundation funds and advances:

Join Us.

This work is only possible through collaboration and support.

Whether you’re a donor, a researcher, or a patient/family member, you can be a part of what’s next. We appreciate your support.