Dr. Steffanie Strathdee

Dr. Steffanie Strathdee

Dr. Strathdee is an infectious disease epidemiologist who has 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. 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.