Dr Steffanie Strathdee

Dr. Strathdee is an infectious disease epidemiologist who received her doctoral training at the University of Toronto. She is renowned for her research on the intersection of HIV and drug use, having generated >600 scholarly publications. She is Associate Dean of Global Health Sciences and Harold Simon Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Diego where she codirects the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics.  She is married to Thomas L. Patterson, Professor of Psychiatry at UC San Diego, where they co-direct a research and training program on the Mexico-US border.  

Strathdee was recently 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 is a future weapon against multi-drug resistant bacterial infections which are expected to kill 10 million people per year by 2050. Strathdee and Patterson co-authored a book on their story called The Perfect Predator: A Scientist’s Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug.

Dr Carl Merril

Dr. Merril, a 1962 graduate of Georgetown University Medical School studied phage biology and medical applications for over 5 decades at the NIH. His studies were inspired by participation in the Cold Spring Harbor Phage Biology Course in 1966 and they included: the interactions of phage and mammalian systems, the development of enhanced phage strains for use as antibacterial agents and the development of phage libraries as an aid in searching for phage for the treatment of individual clinical infections. An extensive, Phage library along with technologies needed to facilitate their use has recently been developed by the Naval Medical Research, Biological Defense Research Directorate and Infections Disease Departments. This technology has been licensed and a Cooperative Research Agreement has been established with Applied Phage Therapeutics (APT), a company cofounded by Dr. Carl Merril and his son , Gregory Merril, where they serve as the Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Executive Officer, respectively.  The primary goal of APT and the Navy is to further the development and clinical appliations of phage, particularly for serious antibiotic resistant bacterial infections.

Dr Joe Campbell

I am a program officer in the division of microbiology and infections diseases (DMID) in the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). My primary role is running the base contract under which our in vitro testing pre-clinical services are conducted (https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/vitro-assessment-antimicrobial-activity-resources). In addition, I am involved in the running of contracts in our pre-clinical models of diseases base contract (https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/pre-clinical-models-infectious-disease). Finally, I run DMID’s bacteriophage interest group.  The goal of this group is to work with the FDA and other federal agencies to promote the clinical use of bacteriophages.

Scott Stibitz

Xavier Duportet

Dr Brian Varnum

Dr. Varnum is a biotech veteran with more than twenty years of experience.  Brian began his career with Amgen, and spent more than 18 years at the biotech pioneer as the company grew from a start-up to the largest and most successful biotechnology company.  He started in discovery research where his team purified novel growth factors and advanced antibodies and small molecules into clinical studies.  Brian also worked in development, assisting with clinical development of proteins, antibodies and small molecules.  In this capacity, Brian contributed to key regulatory filings, market research and product launch, giving him experience in drug discovery and development from the lab bench to product launch and marketing. 

After retiring from Amgen in 2007, Brian turned his focus to the start-up landscape, working in several capacities, including assisting investors, entrepreneurs and start-ups in the assessment of technologies for funding or in-licensing.  In these capacities, Brian established research strategies and plans, and served as CSO for several companies, securing funding, and executing research contracts with large and mid-sized pharmaceutical companies. 

Brian obtained his Ph.D. from UCLA studying oncogenes, and his drug development research experience includes hematopoietic growth factor discovery, oncology, auto-immune/inflammatory disorders, personalized medicine in IBD and infectious diseases.

Dr Kevin Yehl

Dr David Harper

My day job is as the CEO of Evolution Biotechnologies, moving environmentally friendly biological controls into the biomedical sector, based on the success of such agents in agriculture. This is based around low cost approaches minimising investor dilution while moving towards large potential markets.

Targets include the house dust mite, the main cause of asthma, where our novel approach underlies broad patent protection, and antibiotic resistant bacterial infections where individual veterinary treatments are already being undertaken. The company is building on its unique skillset in these key areas.

As to “something people may not know about me”…. After this meeting I will be flying back to the UK for just two days, during which I will be there for the tenth birthday of the youngest of my six children. I then leave the UK again next Monday to travel to Egypt, where I intend to spend two weeks largely underneath the Red Sea.

Dr Catherine Loc-Carrillo

I obtained my Ph.D. from Nottingham University, UK in 2005, studying ‘Bacteriophage control of campylobacters in poultry production’ and have over 18-years of experience working with phages and medically important pathogens. I worked in the biotech industry between 2006 and 2009, developing phage-based products to detect foodborne pathogens and decontaminate food following regulatory guidelines. I moved back into academia in 2010 to work for the University of Utah. I’m currently a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Utah and a Research Scientist at the Salt Lake City Veterans Affair Medical Centre.

My research is focused in developing translational studies to prevention and treatment polymicrobial infections using experimentally infected animal models. My goal is to conduct well-controlled, impartial research to investigate the use of phages as biocontrol agents to clinically problematic infections, with particular emphasis on antibiotics resistant bacteria.

Dr Breck Duerkop

Dr Tobi Nagel

Photo Credit: Mark Warren

Phages for Global Health is a nonprofit organization that facilitates the application of phages to combat antimicrobial resistance in developing countries. We accomplish this mission in two general ways: by delivering laboratory training workshops through which we teach scientists in developing countries how to isolate and characterize phages locally; and by partnering with developing world researchers to co-develop phage products for specific applications in their countries. Before founding Phages for Global Health, Tobi had 15 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry where she worked with international teams to co-develop products that have been tested in over 80 clinical trials worldwide.