OSU Science Sunday!

“The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend: How Viruses are Being Used to Fight Superbugs”

Steffanie Strathdee
Associate Dean of Global Health Sciences and Harold Simon Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Diego

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the most pressing global health issues of the 21st century and is worsening with the COVID-19 pandemic. With existing antibiotics losing potency and limited classes of antibiotics in the pipeline, alternatives are needed to battle multi-drug resistant bacterial infections (‘superbugs’). Through the lens of her family’s personal experience with a deadly superbug infection, Dr. Strathdee’s presentation will discuss the medical history of viruses that attack bacteria (bacteriophage, or phage) and how they have been used to treat superbug infections for over 100 years. This presentation will discuss the reasons why bacteriophage therapy fell out of favor in the West, drawing from research conducted by medical historian Dr. William Summer. It will also cover recent advances in phage therapy that led to the founding of the first dedicated phage therapy institute in North America (IPATH), and the role of her family’s case in the process.

Steffanie Strathdee is an infectious disease epidemiologist who is Associate Dean of Global Health Sciences and Harold Simon Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Diego where she now codirects the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics (IPATH).  In 2016, Strathdee and colleagues were credited with saving her husband’s life from a deadly superbug infection using bacteriophages – viruses that attack bacteria. The case, which involved cooperation from three universities, the U.S. Navy and researchers across the globe, shows how phage therapy has potential to treat multi-drug resistant bacterial infections which are expected to kill 10 million people per year by 2050. Strathdee and her husband co-authored their memoir called The Perfect Predator: A Scientist’s Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug. For her efforts to revitalize phage therapy in the West, she was named one of TIME magazine’s Most Influential People in Health Care in 2018.