Strathdee, Steffanie

About

Steffanie A. Strathdee is the Harold Simon Distinguished Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine. She is a co-director of UCSD’s center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics (IPATH) and the International Core of UCSD’s Center for AIDS Research. As an infectious disease epidemiologist, her research over the past two decades has focused on HIV prevention in marginalized populations in developing countries. She has published over 700 peer-reviewed publications and currently leads a multidisciplinary team studying HIV risk behaviors among people who use drugs on the Mexico-US border. Her work has earned her numerous awards and honors, including the Leadership Award in International Collaboration from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a MERIT award from the same institute, and recognition as one of TIME's 50 Most Influential People in Health Care in 2018. She co-authored her memoir, The Perfect Predator, which details her efforts to seek bacteriophage therapy to save her husband from a multidrug resistant bacterial infection. Her research also includes revitalizing phage therapy in North America, and she is known for her contributions to science communication, harm reduction, and addressing antimicrobial resistance.

Selected publications

• Phage therapy: From biological mechanisms to future directions

  Cell · 2023-01-01 · 755 citations

  reviewOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Increasing antimicrobial resistance rates have revitalized bacteriophage (phage) research, the natural predators of bacteria discovered over 100 years ago. In order to use phages therapeutically, they should (1) preferably be lytic, (2) kill the bacterial host efficiently, and (3) be fully characterized to exclude side effects. Developing therapeutic phages takes a coordinated effort of multiple stakeholders. Herein, we review the state of the art in phage therapy, covering biological mechanisms…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Homelessness, unstable housing, and risk of HIV and hepatitis C virus acquisition among people who inject drugs: a systematic review and meta-analysis

  The Lancet Public Health · 2021-03-26 · 207 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior author

  BACKGROUND: People who inject drugs (PWID) are at increased risk for HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and also have high levels of homelessness and unstable housing. We assessed whether homelessness or unstable housing is associated with an increased risk of HIV or HCV acquisition among PWID compared with PWID who are not homeless or are stably housed. METHODS: statistic and p value for heterogeneity. FINDINGS: = 9·6%; n=14). For risk of HIV acquisition, the association for unstable hou…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Optimizing phage therapy with artificial intelligence: a perspective

  Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology · 2025-05-27 · 21 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Phage therapy is emerging as a promising strategy against the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance, yet phage and bacteria are incredibly diverse and idiosyncratic in their interactions with one another. Clinical applications of phage therapy often rely on a process of manually screening collections of naturally occurring phages for activity against a specific clinical isolate of bacteria, a labor-intensive task that is not guaranteed to yield a phage with optimal activity against a partic…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis programmatic preferences among people who inject drugs: findings from a discrete choice experiment

  Addiction Science & Clinical Practice · 2024-11-12 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) holds promise for decreasing new HIV infections among people who inject drugs (PWID), yet daily oral PrEP use is low, and PrEP modality and delivery strategy preferences in this population remain understudied. METHODS: From May 2022-June 2023, we conducted a discrete choice experiment (DCE) with PWID in San Diego, California. Participants viewed 18 PrEP program scenarios in sets of three and chose their preferred scenario within each set. Scenarios con…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Is San Diego California on Track to Reach HCV Elimination? A Modeling Analysis of Combination Prevention Strategies

  Viruses · 2024-11-22 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  in the county of San Diego (COSD) was launched, a private-public joint endeavor between the COSD and the American Liver Foundation. We use epidemic modeling to assess whether the COSD is on track to reach its elimination targets (80% reduction in incidence, 65% reduction in hepatitis C virus (HCV)-related mortality by 2030 compared to 2015) and what intervention scale-up may be required. We adapted a previously developed dynamic, deterministic model of HCV transmission and disease progression am…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy in Epidemiology, Department of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics

  University of Toronto

  1994

• Master of Science in Epidemiology, Department of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics

  University of Toronto

  1990

• Honors Bachelor of Science Degree Microbiology Specialist, Minor in English, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

  University of Toronto

  1988

Awards & honors

• Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health (1999)
• Member National Institute on Drug Abuse (2009)
• Award for Leadership in International Collaboration San Dieg…
• Women Who Mean Business Award POZ Magazine (2010)
• MERIT UC San Diego (2012)

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