Check out our conversation with Daria on the Podovirus podcast!
🎧 Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/6KX...
🎧 Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/...
📺 YouTube: youtu.be/nbN4whcoJrU
10/
Where does she hope the field is in 15 years?
FDA-approved phage products, and compassionate use still running alongside them.
“There will always be patients who don’t fit trials. The two will coexist.”
9/
Her research questions now come straight from the clinic:
Does resistance evolve during treatment? How often? In what way?
Can phage clear biofilms?
What actually happens to the microbiome?
8/
On the FDA: she used to dread Friday emergency calls that felt like her PhD qualifying exam.
Now it's mostly email. 30-day windows. A program manager handling paperwork. It's routine.
“They’ve evolved as the field has evolved.”
7/
One step she won’t delegate: formulation.
Once a week, 8:30–9am — after preschool drop-off, before her students arrive — she’s alone in the lab formulating IV phage.
“I want to be the one to own it.”
6/
On manufacturing, she’s optimized everything she can.
Weekly batching for susceptibility testing.
Pre-made cocktail vials in the fridge.
Multi-patient preps.
Low-bind tubes to keep phage titers stable for 6+ months.
5/
Collaboration in the phage therapy community is the theme Daria returns to often.
“I’ve gotten as far as I have because of the generosity of this community.”
Her biggest fear? VC money enters, greed/ego ensues, and people stop sharing phages for patients.
4/
Her first case (2020): a CF patient post–lung transplant w/ a decade-long Burkholderia infection.
None of her phages matched. She called Ben Chan @Yale. He worked overnight & had a phage within 1 wk.
This quick + helpful collaboration launched her phage therapy operation..
3/
First, you have to build your phage library right.
Daria's team only uses the scariest bugs as bait.
They collects drug resistant clinical isolates from physician colleagues & fish for phages in hospital wastewater.
If a phage kills those bugs, it's clinically relevant.
2/
In 2018, @dariavantyne.bsky.social started her phage lab at @pittdeptofmed.bsky.social.
She had 0 phages, just knew their biology & wanted to help patients.
Today her lab makes phage for dozens of patients/year under compassionate use, while still publishing research.
We asked Daria: HOW?
🧵1/
Oh also find John Rex here! @johnhrexmd.bsky.social
6/ The solution? We need new models that pay for ACCESS, not USAGE
Think Netflix subscription > pay per view
Read the full analysis by @JohnRex_NewAbx: https://amr.solutions/2024/10/14/plazomicin-achaogen-financial-post-mortem-passpasteur/
/end
5/ Why this matters for scientists:
We're not just losing drugs. We're losing the teams who know how to make them.
Talent is leaving the field. (The true cost of broken incentives)
4/ The hidden tragedy: Plazomicin still WORKS. It could save lives.
But without a company behind it = limited global access
Like having a fire extinguisher no one can buy 🧯
3/ The painful numbers from @JohnRex_NewAbx's analysis:
- $500-600M to reach approval
- +$350M to keep it on market 10yrs
- Expected sales? Minimal
Because good stewardship = less use = bankruptcy 🤯
2/ The developer's paradox: "Make something AMAZING... that we hope rarely gets used"
Investors: "So we spend millions to create a drug that sits on a shelf?"
Scientists: "Yes! That's the point!"
Investors: *leaves chat*
1/ The Achaogen story haunts scientists:
- Spent 9 years developing plazomicin
- Got FDA approval in 2018
- Raised $776M (!!)
- Bankrupt by 2019
- Sold for pennies: $16M
The math wasn't mathing 📉
🧬 Big Pharma's antibiotic problem:
A successful drug + FDA approval = $776M loss
Here's how that happens 🧵
Or really anyone. Awesome read
This is so good!
Laughed out loud — phage field, there’s still hope for us 😂
Source: Kate Zernike’s The Exceptions — highly recommend, cannot put it down!!
Hello 🦋 #protein / #microbio / #BioML community! We are excited to release Gaia🌎, a context-aware protein search tool, extending protein search and discovery capabilities beyond sequence and structure, to include *genomic context*. Search your favorite protein sequences with on gaia.tatta.bio
Do you feel stressed?
Is it one thing or a combination?
Turns out bacteria can’t handle stress either!
Excited to share my first first author paper out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social!
Combining multiple stressors blocks bacterial migration and growth! www.cell.com/current-biol...
Image shows the road gritters in Scotland with their names which includes Taylor Drift, Skate Bush, Air Salter Scott, Me Snow it all, Spready Mercury
It's the time of year to appreciate the names of Scottish gritters! #Scotland
A review on "Bacterial Organelles in Iron Physiology" from Hualiang Pi et al.
Joe Neilands (a siderophore pioneer) once stated that Fe was too important for bacteria to export. Bacteria DO export Fe, but they can also store it in organelles.
#MicroSky
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Hi friends new and old! I study how microbes interact and evolve in complex communities like the human gut microbiome.🦠🧬💩 I'm thrilled to share that I'm starting a lab at UC Irvine in April 2025 and am recruiting at all levels - please spread the word! kxuelab.com More about my work below...🧵1/n
Trying to purify and sequence #phage for phage therapy?
Try #sphae a new approach to identify if your phage could be useful for treatment
#phagesky
Honoured to have been voted as President-elect of the International Society for the Viruses of Microbes (ISVM) and excited to work with the Executive Board over the next few years
#phagesky
phagesociety.org
When applying to NSF for funding, each senior personnel has to provide a “Collaborators and Other Affiliations” (COA) form, which can be quite onerous. A couple of years ago I created a tool bit.ly/NSF_COA for automating this, and recently hardened it. I hope it is of use, and feedback is welcome! 🧪
Wonderful thank you! I will post this in Capsid & Tail this week and see who else we can bring on over!
