Steffanie Strathdee's Blog, page 2
January 10, 2019
Our New Phage Therapy Center is About to Launch its First Clinical Trial
The hardcover of Perfect Predator has 304 pages, but the story doesn't end there. Oh no. After the success of "The Patterson Case", interest in phage therapy in North America and Western Europe has really taken off. Several pharmas and biotechs are getting involved in phage therapy. And the new phage therapy center that I co-founded and co-direct (IPATH) is about to launch its first clinical trial! This will be the first clinical trial of intravenous phage therapy to treat multi-drug resistant Staph infections in the US among people with VADs (ventricular assist devices). These devices are prone to bacterial biofilms which antibiotics can't penetrate well. We are excited to be moving phage therapy into trials so that its approval is closer to reality. Read more about it here: https://www.healio.com/infectious-dis...
December 26, 2018
A few of my favorite books
I've been an avid reader since I was a girl. I look for books with strong female protagonists, that take me to a different time or culture, and where I learn something new along the way, but without the author getting preachy. A few of my timeless favorites are here:
Peter Hoeg's "Smilla's Sense of Snow",
Vanessa Steven's "The Informationist"
Valya Dudycz Lupescu's "The Silence of Trees"
Peter Hoeg's "Smilla's Sense of Snow",
Vanessa Steven's "The Informationist"
Valya Dudycz Lupescu's "The Silence of Trees"
December 23, 2018
Advance Praise for The Perfect Predator
As our publication date approaches (2/26/19), Tom and I are thrilled to have received advance praise from a number of respected sources! Here's one of my favorites:
“A remarkable story of love, resilience, the science of discovery, and quite possibly the future of medicine”.
- Dr. Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief, The Lancet
“A remarkable story of love, resilience, the science of discovery, and quite possibly the future of medicine”.
- Dr. Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief, The Lancet
November 18, 2018
TIME magazine honors
Wow! TIME magazine listed me as one of their top 50 health care influencers for 2018 for my work to bring phage therapy to North America! Such an incredible honor, especially for a non-physician.
http://time.com/collection/health-car...
http://time.com/collection/health-car...
November 5, 2018
From "Bog to Blog"
On November 1, the Netflix docu-series "Follow This" started streaming a segment that gave a sneak peak about the story behind our forthcoming book, The Perfect Predator. (Check it out, it's Part 3, episode 4; "Superbug Snipers" https://www.netflix.com/title/80217889).
In the first scene of the segment, the Buzzfeed reporter who covers the story visits a water treatment facility to collect sewage to go phage hunting. She then accompanies a phage researcher who returns to the lab to see if any phages in the sewage sample match the bacteria we want phages for. After that, the phages are purified and expanded, before being characterized for the phage 'library'. That's how phages go from "bog to bedside". Sounds crazy, but it's true!
In the first scene of the segment, the Buzzfeed reporter who covers the story visits a water treatment facility to collect sewage to go phage hunting. She then accompanies a phage researcher who returns to the lab to see if any phages in the sewage sample match the bacteria we want phages for. After that, the phages are purified and expanded, before being characterized for the phage 'library'. That's how phages go from "bog to bedside". Sounds crazy, but it's true!
