Steffanie A. Strathdee

Steffanie A. Strathdee
Born (1966-05-28) May 28, 1966
Residence San Diego, California
Nationality
  • Canadian
  • American
Alma mater University of Toronto
Scientific career
Fields Infectious disease epidemiology
Institutions University of California, San Diego
Johns Hopkins University

Steffanie A. Strathdee (born May 28, 1966) is the associate dean of global health sciences, Harold Simon Professor at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Co-Director, Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics[1]. She is known for her work on HIV research and prevention programmes in Tijuana.[2]

Career

Early career

Strathdee is a Canadian-born infectious disease epidemiologist who has spent most of her career focusing on HIV prevention research in underserved, marginalized populations in developed and developing countries, including injection drug users, men having sex with men, and sex workers. Her early research in Vancouver, Canada identified a major outbreak of HIV infection that occurred among injection drug users that occurred despite the presence of one of the largest needle exchange programs in North America. She and her colleagues used this research to successfully advocate for additional HIV prevention and treatment services in Vancouver from the provincial and federal governments. However, in the US, her work along with data from researchers in Montreal was mis-used as a political tool to keep the Congressional ban on the use of federal funds to support needle exchange programs in place. In Vancouver, she founded the Vancouver Injection Drug Use study in 1996, and the Vanguard study of young men who have sex with men. Her work on these studies led her to identify social determinants as independent predictors of HIV risk taking. She received a Young Investigator’s Award from the International AIDS Society in 1996 for this research. In 1998, she published a manuscript in JAMA which showed that only half of medically eligible HIV-infected drug users were receiving antiretroviral therapy in Vancouver, which subsequently led to intensified efforts to expand access to HIV care. She was recruited to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 1998, where she was an Associate Professor until 2003, before being recruited to the University of California San Diego in 2004.[3]

Leadership in global health

Since 2008, Strathdee has been associate dean of Global Health Sciences with responsibility for oversight of UC San Diego’s campus-wide global health institute (GHI ),[4] which aims to facilitate research, education, private partnerships across diverse disciplines and to address global health challenges in the 21st century. Together with her husband, Dr. Thomas Patterson, she has led a large research and training program on the Mexico-US border. She was chief of the Division of Global Public Health in UC San Diego’s Department of Medicine until 2017.[5]

Role in promoting phage therapy

In 2016, Strathdee enlisted the help of an international team of physicians and researchers to save her husband’s life with bacteriophage (phage) therapy after he acquired a life-threatening infection with a ‘superbug ’, Acinetobacter baumannii. Although phage therapy had been used for one hundred years in Eastern Europe, it was not licensed for clinical use in the United States or most of Western Europe. Her husband, Dr. Tom Patterson, appears to be the first person in the U.S. to be successfully cured from a systemic multi-drug-resistant bacterial infection with cocktails of intravenous bacteriophages. After the case was published, it received considerable attention in top medical journals including JAMA and Lancet, as well as numerous reports in the international press (see below) and a TEDx talk. The Guardian listed this case as one of the top science stories of 2017. Since her husband’s release from hospital in 2016, Strathdee and her physician friend, Chip Schooley, who was responsible for treating her husband, have been actively involved in helping other patients receive phage therapy and are hoping to launch an institute for phage therapy at UCSD where rigorous studies are needed to determine if it is efficacious to enable its licensure and widespread use. Dr. Patterson made a full recovery and returned to work in April 2017. Strathdee and her husband are writing a book about their story called The Perfect Predator: An Epidemiologist’s Journey to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug, which will be published by Hachette Book Group, in spring 2019.

Research projects

  • Police Training To Reduce Occupational Needlesticks And Hiv Among Substance Users;[6] Funded by NIDA grant R01 DA039073
  • Impact Of Drug Policy Reform On The Hiv Risk Environment Among Idus In Tijuana;[6] Funded by NIDA grant R37 DA019829
  • Training Program in Substance Use, HIV and Related Infections[6] (T32); funded by NIDA grant T32 DA 023356; Role: PI
  • Modeling Structural Hiv Determinants In Substance Users And Related Populations[6] Co Pi; Funded by NIDA grant D43 TW009343

Phage therapy

In 2016, Strathdee enlisted the help of an international team of physicians and researchers to save her husband’s life with bacteriophage (phage) therapy after he acquired a life-threatening infection with a ‘superbug’, Acinetobacter baumannii. Although phage therapy had been used for one hundred years in Eastern Europe, it was not licensed for clinical use in the United States or most of Western Europe. Her husband, Dr. Tom Patterson, appears to be the first person in the U.S. to be successfully cured from a systemic multi-drug resistant bacterial infection with cocktails of intravenous bacteriophages. After the case was published, it received considerable attention in top medical journals including JAMA and Lancet, as well as numerous reports in the international press (see below) and a TEDx talk. The Guardian listed this case as one of the top science stories of 2017. Since her husband’s release from hospital in 2016, Strathdee and her physician friend, Chip Schooley, who was responsible for treating her husband, have been actively involved in helping other patients receive phage therapy and are hoping to launch an institute for phage therapy at UCSD where rigorous studies are needed to determine if it is efficacious to enable its licensure and widespread use. Patterson made a full recovery and returned to work in April 2017. Strathdee and her husband are writing a book about their story called The Perfect Predator: An Epidemiologist’s Journey to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug, which will be published by Hachette Book Group, in Spring 2019.

Press

Strathdee's work has been covered by the popular media including:

Maclean’s [7]

CBC "'The enemy of my enemy is my friend:' Couple turns to viruses to beat back superbug"[8][9]

BBC’s The World "Men who inject drugs and are deported from the United States to Mexico are at high risk of HIV infection, says a study." [10]

KPBS "San Diego Man Saved By Therapeutic Use Of Viruses"[11][12]

Mother Jones "He Was Dying. Antibiotics Weren’t Working. Then Doctors Tried a Forgotten Treatment." [13]

Buzzfeed "Her Husband Was Dying From A Superbug. She Turned To Sewer Viruses Collected By The Navy. Scientists have long dismissed “phage therapy” as a fringe idea pushed by eccentrics who enjoy fishing in sewage. But now the Navy is betting on it." [14]

Huffington Post "Sewage Saved This Man’s Life. Someday It Could Save Yours." [15]

TIME "Superbugs Are Nearly Impossible to Fight. This Last-Resort Medical Treatment Offers Hope"[16]

References

  1. ↑ Strathdee, Steffanie. "IPATH". Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics.
  2. ↑ Lane, Richard (21 July 2014). "Steffanie Strathdee: "called" to HIV prevention". Lancet. 385 (9962): 20. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(14)61048-5.
  3. ↑ Division of Global Public Health, University of California San Diego (6 April 2018). "Dr. Steffanie A. Strathdee". Division of Global Public Health UCSD. Retrieved 6 April 2018.
  4. ↑ "UCSD Global Health Institute". UC San Diego Global Health Institute.
  5. ↑ "UCSD Department of Medicine". UC San Diego Department of Medicine.
  6. 1 2 3 4 [Strathdee], [Steffanie] (2018). "NIH Reporter".
  7. ↑ Dowsett Johnston, Ann (Jul 1, 1997). "To light the darkness". Maclean's. 110 (26): 74–77.
  8. ↑ Zafar, Amina (April 29, 2017). "'The enemy of my enemy is my friend:' Couple turns to viruses to beat back superbug". CBC. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  9. ↑ Dakin, Pauline (July 22, 2014). "AIDS conference told legalizing prostitution a simple way to curb HIV". CBC. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  10. ↑ Navas, María Elena (3 August 2008). "Deportación, drogas y VIH". BBC. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  11. ↑ Goldberg, Kenny (April 25, 2017). "San Diego Man Saved By Therapeutic Use Of Viruses". KPBS. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  12. ↑ Guerrero, Jean (April 13, 2015). "Tijuana Mandates Drug Treatment For Hundreds Of Homeless". KPBS. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  13. ↑ "He Was Dying. Antibiotics Weren't Working. Then Doctors Tried a Forgotten Treatment. Phages are making a comeback".
  14. ↑ "Her Husband Was Dying From A Superbug. She Turned To Sewer Viruses Collected By The Navy".
  15. ↑ "Sewage Saved This Man's Life. Someday It Could Save Yours".
  16. ↑ "Superbugs Are Nearly Impossible to Fight. This Last-Resort Medical Treatment Offers Hope".
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.