With new Lyme diagnostics emerging, how might we make Lyme and other tickborne disease diagnoses more visible and transparent so patients and clinicians can understand and act on complex information — and learn from real voices?
The LymeX Visible Voices Prize is a national prize competition with a $250,000 prize pool to elevate patient experiences and improve understanding of Lyme and tickborne disease diagnosis. It mobilizes patients, caregivers, clinicians, and innovators to create clear, trusted educational resources that address urgent gaps in awareness and care.
Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in the United States and affects hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. Still, many experience delayed or unclear Lyme disease diagnoses due to limited awareness, evolving testing options, and communication gaps. The result is prolonged illness, debilitating complications, increased health care costs, inconsistent care pathways, and reduced quality of life for patients and family caregivers.
This prize enables participants to transform lived experience and emerging science into practical, trusted resources. Participants retain full ownership of the materials and intellectual property they create. Final submissions are shared publicly under Creative Commons licenses, allowing broad reuse with attribution. The Federal Government provides a platform to elevate and amplify these solutions — turning lived experience into widely accessible, high-impact resources.
This is a national call to action, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the LymeX Innovation Accelerator. This prize builds upon the existing LymeX Diagnostics Prize — now in Phase 4 — and is the first LymeX prize in four years open to all U.S. citizens and organizations.
Join a community-driven effort to turn lived experience and emerging science into resources that help people understand, navigate, and act on diagnostic information.
Compete for $250,000 in total prizes — and help deliver solutions that matter.
Create clear, evidence-based educational materials that deliver real-world impact. Teams will design resources that improve understanding, communication, and decision-making—translating complexity into clarity. Materials must be based on federal government sources and peer-reviewed literature and be immediately understandable and usable by the intended audience without specialized training.
Focus your solution in one of four challenge areas:
The LymeX Visible Voices Prize, conducted under the America COMPETES Act and HHS Challenge rules, is open to eligible U.S. citizens and U.S. organizations.
Within six months of launch, this prize will generate a portfolio of 30 or more publicly shareable submissions and produce 16+ high-impact, evidence-based materials. These outputs will improve understanding of Lyme diagnostics, elevate patient voices, and support more informed care decisions.
All submitted entries may be shared publicly under Creative Commons licenses and may be amplified by HHS, CDC, federal partners, LymeX affiliates, and others to promote awareness and improve understanding of Lyme and tickborne disease diagnostics. Participants retain ownership of their work while enabling broad public reuse and dissemination.
Build with communities. Solve real challenges. Create resources that matter.