Podovirus

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, co-founder of Invitris, joins Jessica and Joe to explain how cell-free phage production works — and why they're building toward a "phage printer" that could sit in a hospital. Topics covered: • How cell-free phage production...

“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.” Paul has spent 35 years in biopharma, and he has a sharp take on why phage therapy isn't pulling in the same kind of investment as other biotech sectors. Cheap, small trials have produced mediocre data that's spooked the money — and t...

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 what the HIV field’s playbook can teach us. Topics covered: • Why they organized an academic phage conference in Washington, D.C. • The state of in vitro phage assays and the reproducibility problem • How to design phage clinical...

What does it take to build a phage therapy program from nothing — and keep your research lab running at the same time? In this episode, Joe and I sat down with Dr. Daria Van Tyne, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and researcher in the Division of Infectious Diseases at UPMC. When Daria arrived at Pitt in 2018, she describes herself as "phage poor" — a...

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 them actually worked in the lab. Not only that, they killed bacteria equally or better than the natural phage the team used as a template.  In this episode, we dig into how they did it, what it means for phage research, and why thi...

"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 clinically, where I think phage would be beneficial, rather than all comers.” What does it take to achieve an 85% success rate with phage therapy? We talk to Dr. Saima Aslam, MD, MS, a Professor of Medicine at UC San Diego and th...

"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 bit here and thinking about phage therapy?" - Dr. Marisa Azad Join us for an inspiring conversation with Dr. Marisa Azad, a clinician-scientist at The Ottawa Hospital who is pioneering the treatment of chroni...

"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 requirements that I don't fit in." When your health innovation doesn't fit existing regulatory boxes, how do you build a business? Steven Theriault, CEO of Cytophage, has spent 9 years learning to navigate Canada's regulatory maze f...

"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 going to get phage therapy until people start demanding we have it."  On this episode, we talk to phage therapy patient advocate Chris Shaffer about how he fought for access to phage therapy to save his own life,...

"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." Jonathan Solomon joins Jessica Sacher and Joe Campbell on the Podovirus Podcast to discuss BiomX's exciting Phase 2 clinical trial results, where they used bacteriophages to treat diabetic foot osteomyelitis (DFO). With 40%...

"I was so biased. I knew too much and that's why we couldn't see the obvious answer that was right in front of us for years." In this episode of the Podovirus Podcast, we explore the intersection of AI and phage biology with Professors José Penadés and Tiago Costa from Imperial College London. They share their recent discovery about phage-inducible chromosomal islands (PICIs) and...

“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 eyes get bigger. And then they hear we're not small molecule, it's like all the alarm bells are ringing.” In this episode, we sit down with Amanda Burkardt (CEO) and Mayukh Das (COO) of Phiogen Pharmaceuticals, a ne...

"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 Georgia." In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Alexander (Sandro) Sulakvelidze to explore his journey in growing a phage therapy company from scratch, from food to human therapy. Growing up in the Republic of Georgia, phage therapy was...

What's it like to be a doctor treating patients with phage therapy in the US today? Dr. Gina Suh, Mayo Clinic infectious disease physician, tells us: - How she established phage therapy as an option for her patients at Mayo - How phages have helped her patients - What's been hardest - Where she's hopeful - Where things have gotten worse - What's next This episode, I'm joined by my phage friend Joe...

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 microbiome editing using modified bacteriophages. We talk about Eligo’s recent Nature publication, “In situ targeted base editing of bacteria in the mouse gut”, how it works, and what the team is thinking of doing with it. 💡 Takeaways:...

Welcome to the Podovirus podcast, episode 2! In this episode, Jessica talks with Dr. Joe Campbell, who recently retired as a program officer at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Joe played a key role in shaping phage research funding and policy during his tenure at NIAID. He reflects on his career, the evolution of p...

This is a very special week. We’re launching the first episode of our Podovirus podcast! We started this on a whim (I wanted to explore this format, since I love talking to phage people and I love podcasts; and Jan came up with a punny name we couldn't pass up). Ok, episode 1! I'll be honest — I stayed in science because of how much I love conferences. My phage phriendships are some of my...