Joel Grimwood needed a new heart, but a chronic bacterial infection lurking within his implanted ventricle assist device made getting one impossible. Five transplant centers declined his case due to his persistent infection. Then Grimwood came to UC San Diego Health, where doctors treated the infection with an experimental bacteriophage therapy – viruses that eat bacteria. The infection cleared and Grimwood got his new heart.
The University of California San Diego launched the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics (IPATH) to develop bacteriophages to fight multidrug-resistant bacteria. The initial focus will be on treating chronic infections associated with cystic fibrosis, organ transplantation and implantable hardware. The center hopes to start clinical trials by year end.
What started with a wife’s stubborn refusal to give up on her husband who lay dying of a superbug infection has become a whole new research initiative at UC San Diego.
One piece of good news can make all the difference. In the fight against antibiotic-resistant infections, a decades-old approach based on bacteria-slaying viruses called phages has been sidelined by technical hurdles, dogged by regulatory confusion, and largely ignored by drug developers in the West. But 2 years ago, researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), used phages to knock out an infection that nearly killed a colleague. Propelled by that success and a handful of others since, UCSD is now launching a clinical center to refine phage treatments and help companies bring them to market.
A new medical research center in San Diego is embracing an innovative way to treat antibiotic resistant infections called bacteriophage therapy—phage therapy for short—which uses viruses as weapons against hard-to-treat infections.
When her husband was dying of a drug-resistant infection, Steffanie Strathdee had a last-ditch idea. They could try treating him with a virus that would kill the bacteria colonizing his insides. The method, called phage therapy, was popular in former Soviet republics, but had mostly been abandoned in the U.S. Researchers had to hunt for the right virus in Texas pigsties and sewage treatment plants.
The Greater Washington Partnership, an alliance of local CEOs, is launching a formal collaboration program with a swath of regional universities — part of an effort to spur the development of more tech-focused workers.
United Therapeutics CEO Martine Rothblatt may not sound like a familiar name to an average person, but in the healthcare industry, she is a living legend. Rothblatt was the second-highest paid female CEO in the U.S. in 2017—and the 19th highest paid overall. (She was the highest-paid female CEO in the U.S. in 2013.)
We’re hearing more and more about precision medicine and how it can positively impact medicine. But what is preventing it from reaching its full potential, and how can everyone from hospitals to startups help scale it?
Silence Therapeutics has appointed Dave Lemus to its Board as non-executive director and Richard Jenkins as head of clinical development. Dave has over 20 years of US and international business experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, having served in executive management and non-executive board roles in multiple US and European private and publicly-traded companies. He is currently executive vice chair, chief operating officer and CFO of Proteros biostructures. He also currently serves as a non-executive board member of BioHealth Innovation, Sorrento Therapeutics, and the MIT Club of Washington DC.
