In just over half a year, the Vineyard Center for Clinical Research has completed its first trial and has begun working on three others that are aimed at improving the diagnosis of Lyme disease. The center operates out of the Vineyard Medical Care building in Vineyard Haven.

By all accounts this has not been an unusually bad year for tick-borne illnesses on the Island. The dry cool summer may have helped — not just in keeping the tick population down, but in keeping hikers and gardeners more fully covered when venturing outdoors.

Anecdotal reports suggest it was an average or slightly above-average season for tick-borne illnesses on the Vineyard. By far the most prevalent illness is Lyme disease. A new venture intends to focus on clinical research into tick-borne illnesses.

Tick season reaches its peak in the month of August, and a group of researchers from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Environmental Protection Agency took advantage of the warm weather to work on their latest effort in the quest to understand tick-borne diseases.

She took her first antibiotic at the age of 19.

“I never really got sick,” Katina L. Makris told an audience of about 30 people on August 18 at the Chilmark Community Church.

This was all before she was bitten by a tick and later diagnosed with Lyme disease.

Ms. Makris’s inspirational talk was part of Bite Back for a Cure, a day on Martha’s Vineyard dedicated to finding a cure.

Ticks beware. Bite Back for a Cure, the national campaign to fight against the impact of tick-borne disease, is coming to the Vineyard for a fundraising event on August 18.

The day begins with a five-mile bike ride starting from the Lyme Center of Martha’s Vineyard to the Chilmark town hall. Check-in for the ride is at 9:30 a.m. and the bicycling begins at 11 a.m.

Katina I. Makris will speak at the Chilmark Community Church beginning at 1 p.m. Ms. Makris is the author of Out of the Woods.

Even if he wasn’t thinking specifically about tularemia, Hans Zinsser knew well the danger that surrounds us. He cynically observed that “however secure and well-regulated civilized life may become, bacteria, Protozoa, viruses, infected fleas, lice, ticks, mosquitoes and bedbugs will always lurk in the shadows ready to pounce when neglect, poverty, famine or war lets down the defenses.”