Phages (bacteriophages) are viruses that kill bacteria with sniper-like precision. They can be incredibly useful for treating life-threatening infections ('phage therapy'), and can help us reduce our dependence on antibiotics. They've been known for 100 years... so WHY do we still not see them on the shelves?
Jessica Sacher, PhD (Staff Scientist at Stanford and cofounder of Phage Directory) and Joseph Campbell, PhD (former NIAID program officer) talk to phage therapy practitioners, researchers and entrepreneurs to understand one question: why don't we have phage therapy yet?
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Meet your hosts
Host / Producer
Jessica “Jess” Sacher
Phage Directory cofounder and phage scientist. Jess produces Podovirus and brings questions from the people working to make phage therapy real.
What if you could build biology in a tube, no cells required? Invitris is a Munich-based cell-free synthesis company starting with bacteriophages. Kilian Vogele,…
“The thing everybody thinks is a tailwind for our space — the low financial barrier to get into a clinical trial — is actually one of the largest headwinds.”
Chip Schooley (UC San Diego, IPATH) and Graham Hatfull (University of Pittsburgh) join us to discuss why phage therapy needs biologists and clinicians collaborating — and…
Can AI design living organisms from scratch? Samuel King and Claudia Driscoll from the Arc Institute used genome language models to generate functional phages—and 16 of…
"When I first started, I was treating anything and everything in terms of ‘this is highly drug resistant and it's failed’. But I think I have a clearer idea now, at least…
"It's unacceptable to just tell this poor patient, there's nothing I can do to help you... That's when I thought, okay, well, what about kind of pushing the boundaries a…
"Phages are not drugs. Every time they say, 'Did you go through regulatory?' I say, 'I can do regulatory, but I'm not a drug.' There's 145 components of the regulatory…
"This feels just like the early days of the HIV crisis. People are dying, you're not hearing about it. We need a group like ACT UP to bring this to the public. We're not…
"Finally, finally we have Phase 2 data. We put a dent in the theory that phage therapy doesn't work. Maybe it does work. Maybe it's worth taking a risk."
“Getting our foot through the door to any VC... As soon as they hear we're infectious disease, their eyes kind of get big. And then they hear we're antibacterial, their…
"Somebody's father, friend, husband just passed away in the most developed country in the world... from a simple infection that probably could have been treated in…
Welcome to the Podovirus podcast, episode 3! In this episode, I talk with Jesus Fernandez-Rodriguez from Eligo Bioscience, a Paris-based biotech company pioneering…
