Gina Suh, MD: What it's really like to treat patients with phage therapy
With Jessica Sacher and Joseph Campbell
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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 Campbell (former NIH program officer)!
This is part 1 of a series we'll be co-hosting together, digging into phage therapy from multiple perspectives, trying to answer our curiosities about what's holding phage therapy back in this country and beyond — stay tuned!
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to our new phage therapy series
01:23 Dr. Gina Suh's journey into phage therapy
06:01 How Gina has shifted how she selects patients for phage therapy
14:35 Challenges Gina has faced with phage therapy
17:46 Research needs: what the field should be studying
26:16 Infrastructure needs: Gina's wishlist
44:34 Gina's phage therapy aspirations
55:18 Why are there no support groups for antibiotic resistance?
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/b2NBYn4jEUo
Learn more:
Paper by Gina and team: Considerations for the use of phage therapy in clinical practice: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35041506/
Video: Gina Suh and John Haverty talk about John's treatment with phages (2021): https://youtu.be/XZPLt6wkh5A?si=PxSZAYmOkn2KICLs