Beyond the Symptoms | An Expert Interview Series by LUF | Live UTI Free

Could a virus found in your toilet water be the future of UTI treatment? In this episode of the LUF Podcast, host Melissa Kramer, PhD, talks with Esme Brinsden, Project Coordinator at the Phage Collection Project, a citizen science initiative based at the University of Southampton in the UK. Esme breaks down bacteriophage therapy: what phages are, how they target and kill bacteria without harming...

The bladder doesn't work in isolation. In this episode of the Live UTI Free podcast, host Melissa Kramer, PhD, talks with Intimate Health Specialist and Nutritional Therapist Kate Waters about the gut-bladder-vagina connection, the role of diet in recurrent and chronic UTIs, and why the nervous system may keep sending pain signals long after an infection has cleared. Kate explains how inflamm...

Catheter-associated UTIs (CAUTIs) don't follow the same rules as uncomplicated UTIs, and most patients are never told why. In this episode, host Melissa Kramer, PhD, talks with microbiologist Dr. Ana Flores-Mireles of the University of Notre Dame about how catheterization changes the bladder environment, why the protein fibrinogen becomes a "bed and breakfast" for bacteria and fungi...

If you've been stuck in a cycle of recurrent UTIs that antibiotics can't seem to clear, this episode is for you. Melissa sits down with Professor Bogoña Heras and Dr. Jason Paxman, structural biologists from La Trobe University in Australia and co-founders of BioBreak Therapeutics. They share the science behind a groundbreaking anti-biofilm antibody therapy designed specifically for chro...

Standard urine cultures have dominated UTI diagnosis for over 70 years, yet they were never designed for this purpose. In this episode, Melissa speaks with Dr. Malcolm Starkey, a scientist at Monash University who leads the Urinary Tract Disease Research Group, about why current testing misses infections, how the urinary microbiome connects to your gut and vagina, and why immunotherapy, not just a...

A clinical trial that defines chronic UTI and tests a treatment protocol designed around it has been a long time coming. In this episode of the Live UTI Free podcast, host Dr. Melissa Kramer sits down with Dr. Kiran Gill and Dr. Harry Horsley to talk through the EAT-UP trial, a new UK-based phase 2 randomised controlled trial investigating extended full-dose antibiotics combined with methenamine h...

What if your bladder isn’t working against you, but trying to tell you something? In this episode of the Live UTI Free podcast, host Melissa Kramer sits down with Julia Anditsch, founder of Die Blase (German for “The Bladder”), an international bladder health platform based in Germany and Austria, and creator of Die Blase To Go, the first ready-to-drink bottled bladder tea. Together, Julia and Mel...

If you’ve ever been told your urine test came back negative but you know something is wrong, this episode is for you. Host Melissa Kramer speaks with Professor Jenny Roan, Head of the Centre for Urological Biology at University College London (UCL), to get into the science that most people living with recurrent or chronic UTI desperately want to understand. From why the dipstick test misses so man...

Can stress really trigger chronic UTI symptoms? In this episode of the Live UTI Free Podcast, host Melissa Kramer speaks with Dr. Aparna Taylor about the connection between stress, the nervous system, inflammation, gut health, and chronic UTI symptoms. Dr. Taylor explains why stress is not just about feeling “stressed out,” but about the body perceiving a threat to survival. She breaks down how be...

Could hidden mold exposure or fungal overgrowth be aggravating your chronic UTI symptoms, even when standard urine cultures come back “negative”? In this episode of the Live UTI Free Podcast, host Melissa (CEO of Live UTI Free) speaks with Dr. Pamela Cipriano, a doctorally-prepared nurse practitioner in Connecticut who practices internal and functional medicine and works with patients experiencing...

Join host Melissa from Live UTI Free as she speaks with Dr. Maria Uloko, a board-certified urologist and founder of VUVLAi. about how misdiagnosis and knowledge gaps in medicine are impacting people with chronic UTI symptoms and vulvar pain. Dr. Uloko shares groundbreaking insights from her research, including how 88% of patients she saw for chronic UTIs were actually suffering from hormone-relate...

In this episode of the Live UTI Free Podcast, host Melissa Kramer welcomes Dr. Henry Schreiber, instructor at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, to explore the fascinating link between our gut microbiome, bladder health, and urinary tract infections (UTIs). Dr. Schreiber specialises in understanding UTIs as a whole‑body problem (not just a bladder infection), and he shares insi...

Join host Melissa from Live UTI Free as she speaks with Dr. Indira Mysorekar, a pioneer in urinary tract infection research whose lab uncovered how Escherichia coli can hide in reservoirs within the bladder and then re‑emerge to trigger recurrent UTIs. Together, they explore how bladder health differs between people assigned female at birth and those assigned male, how menopause and chronic inflam...

In this episode of the Live UTI Free Podcast, host Melissa Kramer talks with Professor Chris Harding, Consultant Urological Surgeon at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Professor of Urology at Newcastle University. They explore the VESPER clinical trial, a landmark study for people with recurrent urinary tract infections (RUTIs) who haven’t improved with first-line prevention....

In this episode, host Melissa Kramer speaks with Amanda Burkardt and Dr. Mayukh Das from Phiogen, a biotechnology company developing bacteriophage (phage) therapeutics for recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs). They describe how their novel approach utilizes targeted viruses to eliminate UTI-causing bacteria, without harming the microbiome. You’ll hear how Phiogen’s science tackles the most ch...

In this episode of the Live UTI Free Podcast , Melissa speaks with Dr. Lindsay Burnett, a physician-scientist in urogynecology, about the complex relationship between pelvic floor disorders, the urinary microbiome, and recurrent UTI symptoms. Dr. Burnett draws from her clinical and research experience to unpack the often misunderstood differences between acute, recurrent, and chronic UTIs. She als...

In this episode of the LUF podcast, host Melissa Kramer sits down with Dr. Nick Parkinson, Scientific Director at the UK-based Systems Biology Laboratory. Driven by a personal experience with his young daughter’s recurring, culture-negative UTIs, Dr. Parkinson’s team developed a groundbreaking DNA‑based test that bypasses traditional culture and PCR methods. Using nanopore sequencing, they analyze...

Guest host Jess Price, Patient Involvement Advisor at Live UTI Free, sits down with naturopathic doctor Carley Akehurst to unpack a powerful new resource for chronic UTI patients: the My UTI History Form . As a chronic UTI patient herself, Jess brings the lived experience perspective to this conversation, asking the questions many patients wish they had the confidence or clarity to ask in the clin...

Host Melissa Kramer interviews Dr. Nicholas Sanford, Vice President of Medical Affairs and Assistant Laboratory Director at MicroGenDX , to explore how advanced molecular testing is transforming the landscape of UTI diagnosis. If you’ve ever had UTI symptoms but were told your test was “negative,” this episode explains why standard tests like dipsticks and cultures often miss infections—and what o...

Host Melissa Kramer interviews UK-based nutritional therapist Beverley Sarstedt on the role of nutrition, gut health, and individualized care in the recovery from chronic and recurrent UTIs. Beverley shares her journey from personal health crisis to clinical practice, and how working alongside chronic UTI experts, such as Ruth Kriz and Dr. Jessica Drummond, has shaped her approach. This episode ex...

In this eye-opening episode, host Melissa Kramer interviews Dr. Shaheen Khazali, a specialist who has performed over 4,000 endometriosis surgeries, on the complexities of endometriosis, especially when symptoms overlap with recurrent UTI and bladder pain. They explore what endometriosis really is, where it can appear (including in the urinary tract), how it may be mistaken for IBS or UTI, and why...

Host Melissa Kramer interviews Dr. Catriona Anderson, a UK-based women’s health doctor and founder of a diagnostics lab focused on enhanced UTI testing. Together, they explore Hiprex—what it is, how it works, and its potential role in managing recurrent and chronic UTIs. Dr. Anderson breaks down the science behind this over-the-counter urinary antiseptic, explaining its dual-action mechanism, how...

Host Melissa Kramer interviews Dr. Philippe Zimmern, a leading expert in female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery, about bladder fulguration—a lesser-known but potentially transformative treatment for recurrent and chronic UTIs. Dr. Zimmern shares his clinical insights, research findings, and practical guidance on when this procedure is appropriate and how it works. From discovering hidde...

Host Melissa Kramer interviews Dr. Ashley Girard, a naturopathic doctor specializing in chronic UTI treatment, recurrent UTI prevention, and bladder health, on chronic UTI, bladder health, and naturopathic treatment. Dr. Girard shares how naturopathic medicine offers a personalized, root-cause approach to managing chronic UTIs—prioritizing long-term healing over temporary symptom relief. She highl...

Host Melissa Kramer Interviews Dr. Soman Abraham, a professor of Pathology at Duke University, on Chronic and Recurrent UTIs. Together, they unpack why some UTIs resolve quickly while others persist or recur, leaving patients in a frustrating cycle of symptoms and treatment. Dr. Abraham shares new insights into how the bladder’s immune system functions and why current antibiotic treatments may fai...