#Strathdee

[strathshepard]

Linn of the River Dee above Braemar, Scotland. 

The name “Strath” means land hollowed out by a river, and it came from my great-great grandmother’s maiden name, Strathdee (land hollowed out by the River Dee, which is in the Highlands in Scotland, west of Aberdeen and Dunnottar Castle).

[sharry-arry-odd]

From time to time, someone would share a glimpse of how personal the project had become to them. Each of them had the dedication it takes to work for years on something that you hope will eventually save lives. But it’s not often, in research labs, that the opportunity presents itself for you to be a first responder in an effort to save someone’s life right now.

The Perfect Predator: A Scientist's Race to Save her Husband from a Deadly Superbug: A Memoir, by Steffanie Strathdee, PhD and Thomas Patterson, PhD

[macgyvermedical]

What is phage therapy? I heard the word somewhere and now it’s stuck in my head but I don’t know what it is. Thanks 🙌

Phage therapy is the therapeutic use of viruses to kill bacteria.

Viruses are semi-living things that use other cells to reproduce. They do this by injecting DNA or RNA into the cell, letting the cell make copies of the genetic material, manufacture proteins, assemble new viruses, and then those new viruses burst out of the cell. In the process of reproducing, the cell is killed.

We typically think of viruses that replicate in human tissue, like influenza or SARS-CoV-2. But as it turns out, where there is a cell, including a plant cell or a bacterial cell, there is a virus that wants to kill it to make baby viruses.

Theoretically, then, if someone has a bacterial infection, we can find the extremely specific virus that kills only the bacteria that are causing the infection, infect the person with that virus, let that virus replicate and kill a bunch of the bacterial cells without harming the human cells, and voila, no more infection. Once the virus runs out of bacterial cells it can't replicate any more and it dies off.

And when I say "theoretically" I mean we have absolutely, definitely done this. Like a lot. And while phage therapy is extremely difficult to do good clinical trials with, as far as we can tell it's been pretty effective, and has few side effects that we know about.

So why don't we use phage therapy all the time?

Well, probably because of how specific the phages are. The phage that kills one kind of staph probably won't work on another kind of staph. So you need giant libraries of phages in order for them to really be useful to a large number of people.

Also, there's politics:

See, depending on what you consider the start of the antibiotic age, phage therapy and antibiotic therapy kind of came into being around the same time. By the start of WWII we had a couple of each worldwide.

Then the war happened and the Iron Curtain came into being. On the Western side resources were funneled into the mass production of a new antibiotic called penicillin, and on the Eastern side, resources were funneled into further developing phage therapy.

Throughout the Cold War this pattern would continue, with the Soviet Union eventually using both antibiotics and phages, and the West using only antibiotics (honestly, it's probably capitalism's fault- making money from phages is extremely difficult because they can't be mass produced like antibiotics can). When the Soviet Union fell apart, the research on phage therapy largely disappeared with it.

The West, now saddled with the burden of antibiotic resistance after decades of overprescription and use in agriculture, is trying to rebuild some of the knowledge that was lost with the fall of the Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, there have only been a handful of people who have been treated with phage therapy in the West. This is because the way phages work makes them extremely difficult to do high quality studies on, which makes them impossible to get FDA approval for in the US. Another factor standing in the way of approval is that they tend to change over time as the bacteria they replicate in evolve. So there are potential approval problems if we approve one type of phage but not the type it becomes in a few years.

So if something needs to change itself to work, how do you monitor to make sure that the changes aren't something dangerous? Do you have to repeatedly apply for approval? It just has all kinds of legal and policy issues.

If you want more info, there is a book called The Perfect Predator by Steffanie Strathdee. The author ended up saving her husband's life using phage therapy after he ended up with a life-threatening multidrug resistant infection.

If you want something shorter than a book, I highly recommend this video by Patrick Kelly.

[graintrainbrain]

A Saskatchewan Grain Car Company Shuttlewagon at Carrot River, Saskatchewan, 09/17/2006. Photo by Gordon J. Strathdee via Old Time Trains

This Shuttlewagon is an example of a railcar mover, a type of road-rail vehicle equipped with couplers for moving small numbers of railcars around a yard or siding.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“WALKERTON: SEVERAL LIQUOR GASES ARE HEARD,” Owen Sound Sun Times. June 20, 1930. Page 11. ---- Magistrate Walker of Walke ton Disposes of a Number of Cases ---- WALKERTON, June 10 - Several charges under the Liquor Control Act recently  were disposed in Magistrate Walker’s Police Court during the past week. Floyd Strathdee, son of the proprietor of the Commercial Hotel Ripley, was assessed $300 and costs when he pleaded guilty in Kincardine Tuesday afternoon to a charge of having liquor in a room in the hotel without being a bonafide guest, which charge was laid by Provincial Officer Nelson. Charges laid against Strathdee, Senior, proprietor of the hotel and Torrence Guest, a barber at the same place, were withdrawn by the Crown.

Ernie  McGregor of Kincardine charged with having liquor illegally did not put in in appearance of the court on Tuesday when ordered to do so, but the Magistrate adjudged him guilty on evidence that the summons had been served, and fined McGregor $150 and costs or a total of $156. In default of payment, he will be jailed tor three months.

Peter Wilson of Harrison, whose car was found last week under the railing at the Hanover bridge, appeared on a charge of operating a car while under the influence of liquor was found guilty and sentenced by the Magistrate to 30 days in the Walkerton gaol and his motor vehicle permit and drivers’ permit were ordered suspended for two months. 

Chief Beamish of Hanover made the discovery when he spotted Wilson crawling around in the weeds at the foot of the bank. A quantity of rubbing alcohol was found on his person he was arrested and brought to Walkerton and remanded by the Magistrate. He told the court that the alcohol was not for beverage purposes but as he was a white-washer by trade he used it on his hands to protect them against the lime. He accounted for his condition to drinking cider with which he had been treated. 

In traffic court on charges laid by Traffic Officer Whitty, P.O. Leismer of Mildmay and Arthur Noll of Formosa were fined for not having drivers permits, and M.F. Mills of Huron County was also fined for failure to produce his permit.

[evoldir]

Fwd: Conference: PennsylvaniaStateU.MicrobiomeEvolution.May30-31

Begin forwarded message: > From: evoldir@evol.biology.mcmaster.ca > Subject: Conference: PennsylvaniaStateU.MicrobiomeEvolution.May30-31 > Date: 24 January 2024 at 06:13:35 GMT > To: rdmpage@gmail.com > > > > The One Health Microbiome Symposium > > - Host:One Health Microbiome Center at Penn State > - Dates: May 30-31, 2024 > - Location:University Park, PA USA > - Website: >  https://ift.tt/8r7ltMC > - Keynote speakers: >    - Dr. Steffanie Strathdee (UC San Diego, "From Bog to Bedside: The >      Story Behind the first Dedicated Phage Therapy Program in the >      United States.") >    - Dr. Paul Schulze-Lefert (Max Planck Institute, ???Reductionist >      approaches to determine functions of the plant root microbiota???) >    - Dr. Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello (Rutgers University, ???The >      Microbiome in the Novacene???) >    - Dr. Edith Hammer (Lund University, ???Windows to the Underground ??? >      Live Broadcast from the World of Soil Microbes???) > > > Details:The symposium will feature internationally-renowned keynote > speakers, faculty and trainee research talks, poster sessions, and > networking events. The goal of the One Health Microbiome Symposium is > to showcase how diverse ecosystems are dependent upon their microbial > communities and how microbes flow through these ecosystems, evolve with > hosts, and interact to shape the outcomes of health and disease. The > biennial event creates an ongoing, supportive, diverse, and intimate > environment for microbiome researchers at all career stages to connect. > > "Ginnan, Nichole"

[nicole1066]

The Perfect Predator

If you love reading about medical breakthroughs, you’ll love this memoir by Steffanie Strathdee. Her husband was the first person in the U.S. to receive phage therapy for his multi-drug resistant infection. None of it would have happened with her grit and determination. A riveting read. View at Medium.com https://medium.com/p/cca1d625e661/edit

[atlanticcanada]

Pay rent and starve or live in a tent and eat: More Haligonians living in tents

Every morning, Darrin Smith does the rounds to tent sites in Halifax, checking in on the people who live here.

He’s been volunteering to help the homeless for more than two decades, and says more people are living in tents than he’s ever seen before.

“There was no tents here in Grand Parade last summer, and as you can see we have nine here now,” he says. “And that’s only been within the last two weeks.”

Smith points to one of the tents, which he says was the first one set up here.

“This blue one here, he’s one that’s actually working every day,” he explains.

Smith says those forced to live in tents have all faced different circumstances, but many, he says, simply can’t afford the city’s high rental rates.

“There's five people that I know of right now that are living in tents and they work, but they don't enough money to make rent,” he says.

“So it's either pay rent or starve or live in a tent and eat.”

Charles Oickle and his partner Trinity Keddy says they’ve been living in a tent since October.

“They need to come in with a better solution of renting, and affordable housing for people,” says Oickle.

Keddy says they moved their tent to different locations throughout the city at least a dozen times, and eventually came to Grand Parade because they feel safer here.

“If you look at all the places we've been and the environment, this place is way better,” she explains, “there’s no trash, there’s Wi-Fi.” But, she notes, there aren’t any public washrooms nearby.

“Compared to last year, we're seeing more youth, we're seeing more seniors, and that’s heartbreaking,” says Max Chauvin, Halifax’s housing and homelessness director.

The city alone has given out 60 so-called “living rough kits” since April 1. The kits consist of a tent, a waterproof tarp, a seasonal sleeping bag, and an inflatable mattress.

According to the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia, 930 people are considered actively homeless in Halifax right now.

Chauvin says the five municipal locations designated for tent-living are now considered full.

“Some of them even have more people than we originally envisioned, and then you’re still seeing people in Victoria Park, Grand Parade is new,” he says. “But there’s also people in a variety of other places, in all areas of the municipality.”

He says as soon as one person finds shelter another becomes homeless, and creating new affordable housing takes time.

“And I think we are seeing more people being homeless than we can create housing spaces, so that’s the challenge,” he explains.

“How do we create them faster? And how do we create them so they are accessible financially.”

Responsibility for addressing homelessness falls under the province’s Department of Community Services.

In an email, a spokesperson for the department, Leanne Strathdee-Dowling, says creating more housing is a “critical piece of the work underway, to provide more appropriate housing solutions to individuals experiencing homelessness.”

The email cites 347 new supportive housing units created in the past year, along with $8.2 million set aside in the provincial budget to “improve homelessness services and increase supportive housing options.”

“In partnership with HRM, we have recently increased outreach support to people living in encampments to better coordinate services and connect individuals to housing support,” writes Strathdee-Dowling.

In the meantime, Smith says the province should be doing more to help people afford a place to live.

“I get frustrated, very frustrated,” he says, “I would like to see the government do something about the rent,” he says, “(if) affordable rent is $750 a month, then why is it people on social services only get $650 for rent?”

As for what keeps him going while doing his work, Smith states simply, “caring.” 

For the latest Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/wavEAFj

[pennysinclairr]

Glossary

ICU: The intensive care unit is a section of the hospital that provides intensive care for critically ill or injured patients using highly trained medical professionals and life support and monitoring equipment

Family: Individuals with whom the patient has a significant relationship with to provide support. These individuals are not always biologically related or immediate family members.

Family-centered care: A healthcare approach that is considerate of the individual families’ needs, values, and traditions

Family ICU syndrome: Morbidity and decision-making impairments that occur within family members of patients with chronic critical illness or acute critical illness inside the ICU

PICS: Post intensive care unit syndrome are the physical, mental and emotional symptoms that arise after a patient is discharged from the ICU

PICS-F: Post-intensive care unit syndrome-family are the new or worsening physical, cognitive, or mental health impairments that arise in relatives after a family member is admitted into the ICU for four to seven days

Facilitated Sensemaking: A midrange theory regarding family engagement that aims to help the family make sense of their current situation and their new role as a caregiver. This must be performed in a structured manner that ultimately decreases the negative outcomes that result from an exposure to critical illness.

PTSD: Post traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder that develops in response to a physical injury, severe mental distress, or extreme emotional dispair.

Davidson, J., Mendis, J., Huynh, T.-G., Farr, S., Jernigan, S., Strathdee, S., & Patterson, T. (2018). Family-Centered Care Interventions to Minimize Family Intensive Care Unit Syndrome and Post-intensive Care Syndrome-Family. Families in the Intensive Care Unit.

[petnews2day]

Remove chick hatching from the curriculum – Take action!

New Post has been published on https://petn.ws/mRTMd

Remove chick hatching from the curriculum – Take action!

In three weeks, the three-day Grand National Festival will take place (13-15 April). The event is a relentless killer of race horses, who die in the most horrific of circumstances. Posted 23 Mar 2023 We have been working with Jessica Strathdee – vegan, activist, and founder of New Zealand’s chapter of Mothers Against Dairy – […]

See full article at https://petn.ws/mRTMd #PetCharitiesNews

[almostnoisydonut]

𝓦𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓦𝓲𝓵𝓵 𝓘𝓽 𝓣𝓪𝓴𝓮 𝓽𝓸 𝓦𝓲𝓹𝓮 𝓞𝓾𝓽 𝓢𝓾𝓹𝓮𝓻𝓫𝓾𝓰𝓼?

More than 10 million people a year could die from antibiotic-resistant bacteria, warns a United Nations report. Yet scientists hope that recent advances — from reviving ancient cures to enlisting bacteria-slaying viruses — could prevent that dire prediction.

By the time Tom Patterson, PhD, was medically evacuated from Egypt to Germany after falling ill on vacation, his condition was rapidly deteriorating. Patterson, 68, had become infected with Acinetobacter baumannii, one of the most antibiotic-resistant superbugs known to science. None of the antibiotics German doctors tried could contain the spreading infection. Patterson was finally transported to the University of California, San Diego, (UC San Diego) hospital, where the infection spread to his bloodstream and he lapsed into a coma. Doctors there told his family that he was almost certainly going to die.

Bacteria like Acinetobacter baumannii, resistant to almost every antibiotic in the pharmacological arsenal, are on the rise. To prevent that nightmare from becoming reality, researchers are scrambling to develop new antimicrobials and enhance the power of those we have.

In a case that may mark a turning point in medicine, Tom Patterson didn’t die from his raging infection.

As her husband’s condition grew dire, Steffanie Strathdee, PhD, an infectious disease epidemiologist at UC San Diego, began frantically searching the medical literature for something, anything, that could save him. That’s when she came across an approach that had been used with some success in the 1920s and 30s but had basically been abandoned after penicillin was discovered: using viruses that prey on bacteria, called bacteriophages, to cure bacterial infections.

Working with Robert Schooley, MD, Patterson’s physician and an infectious disease expert at UC San Diego Health, Strathdee connected with scientists at two institutions engaged in phage research: Texas A&M and the Naval Medical Research Center. Isolates of the superbug running rampant in her husband’s body were sent to both institutions. There, researchers identified eight phage variants that were likely to be active against his infection. Once the hospital and the Food and Drug Administration provided approvals, Schooley administered the experimental phage cocktail.

“Three days later Tom woke up,” recalls Strathdee, who went on to co-write a book with her husband about their ordeal, called The Perfect Predator: A Scientist’s Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug. “Within a week or two, he was off all life support.”

For nearly a century, bacteria-fighting drugs known as antibiotics have helped to control and destroy many of the harmful bacteria that can make us sick. But in recent decades, antibiotics have been losing their punch against some types of bacteria. In fact, certain bacteria are now unbeatable with today’s medicines. Sadly, the way we’ve been using antibiotics is helping to create new drug-resistant “superbugs.”

Superbugs are strains of bacteria that are resistant to several types of antibiotics. Each year these drug-resistant bacteria infect more than 2 million people nationwide and kill at least 23,000, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and staph infections are just a few of the dangers we now face.

Antibiotics are among the most commonly prescribed drugs for people. They’re also given to livestock to prevent disease and promote growth. Antibiotics are effective against bacterial infections, such as strep throat and some types of pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, and ear infections. But these drugs don’t work at all against viruses, such as those that cause colds or flu.

Unfortunately, many antibiotics prescribed to people and to animals are unnecessary. And the overuse and misuse of antibiotics helps to create drug-resistant bacteria.

The fight against resistance does not only mean searching for new antibiotic molecules or classes of drugs from scratch: researchers have also been looking at possible ways to restore the efficacy of existing drugs.

Dr Oksana Bilyk, of Manchester Institute of Biotechnology in the UK, sees the potential for researchers to add chemical groups with useful properties to current antibiotics, which could be of use in overcoming antimicrobial resistance.

Dr Bilyk and her colleagues bioengineered bacteria to make new enzyme-based building blocks to incorporate into antibiotics.

‘Depending on the building blocks used, it may change the properties of the compound (such as an antibiotic),’ she said. Physical, chemical or biological properties may be affected, and could, for example, improve solubility of an antibiotic, she says.  

That holds out the prospect of modifying an antibiotic’s chemical makeup sufficiently to overcome resistance, while maintaining its impact against a pathogen.

New weapons are needed to fight drug-resistant bacteria, one of the biggest threats to global health. By working on new antibiotics or finding ways to revive existing ones in our medical arsenal, scientists aim to avoid a return to a world where even everyday infections may mean death.

[unfilodaria]

Opera: Zärtliche Berührungen (Tender Touches) (Carezze), 1976 fotografia a colori, di Renate Bertlmann (nata nel 1943, Vienna, Austria) una delle principali artiste visive femministe austriache d'avanguardia.

Opera presente nella sezione: Sessualità Femminile "Un'avanguardia femminista". Fotografie e performance degli anni 70 dalla Collezione Verbund, Vienna.

Les Rencontres de la photographie, Arles, 2022

Per più di cinquant'anni, Renate Bertlmann ha dedicato il suo fare arte alla ribellione. Il suo lavoro fa costantemente riferimento al corpo e si concentra principalmente sulle parti intime per dar loro voce. Dopo aver letto il saggio di Linda Nochlin "Perché non ci sono state grandi donne artiste?" l'artista dice che "si è svegliata dal sonno come la Bella Addormentata". Ha iniziato a cercare sorelle ed è stata coinvolta in gruppi femministi come AUF–Aktion Unabhängiger Frauen [Gruppo d'azione di donne indipendenti], IntAkt [Gruppo d'azione internazionale di artisti femminili] e Donne contro la pornografia a New York. Ha inoltre scritto pamphlet e fondato il collettivo di artiste Marebagroup (1974) con l'artista australiana Barbara Strathdee e l'artista triestina Emanuela Marassi.

Centro Cultural Tina Modotti

[wolfnowl]

When Antibiotics Failed, She Found a Natural Enemy of Superbug Bacteria to Save Husband's Life

WoW. 👏

[18thvariation]

2021 annual review

... what an absolutely wild year.

I went from seeing one other person during the early months of the pandemic to suddenly interacting with 1000-6000 people daily as they filed through the mass vaccination clinics. The juxtaposition was breathtaking. So was the wide variation in human behaviour exhibited as people emerged from their varying degrees of isolation and showed up at the clinics.

The early months were full of growing pains, as we faced a chaotic rollout, ever-changing eligibility, unpredictable schedules & staffing. I was beyond grateful to receive my first dose of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine, and I could not stop smiling as I saw the look of pure relief on other healthcare workers’ faces as they filed through Blusson in their scrubs and clogs. Of course, it wasn’t all rosy. I faced my fair share of racist remarks, desperate pleas from stressed and/or terrified healthcare colleagues, and verbal aggression from clients who chose to inflict violence. The summer months (and the Delta variant) brought a new wave of challenges as we endured clinician burnout, the heat dome, vaccine supply issues, medical misinformation, unpredictable pop-up clinics, and youth immunizations. In the colder months, we settled into a weird liminal space, with a tenuous acceptance of masks and QR codes as long as the capitalist machine could continue unabated. Did we dare dream about a holiday season that approximated the before-times? We all know how that ended. Omicron. Mass illness. Hospitalizations. The breathtaking booster rollout.

I won’t rehash the trauma and burnout here. It has been (and continues to be) a great honour to be involved with the vaccine campaign to protect public health. The COVID-19 experience has undoubtedly reaffirmed my dedication to the service of others, but also continually forces me to confront the chasm between evidence-based science and the attempts to manufacture reality. It is painful to see my field slandered, misunderstood, and misrepresented so hatefully. It is even more painful to see it being commandeered by armchair Twitter epidemiologists and MD/MPH/PhD/MBA grifters who should be ashamed of the classist, ableist, and frankly eugenic rhetoric they are pushing.

Notable Happenings:

Welcomed Momo (American eskie/Japanese spitz puppy) into our lives

Animal Crossing New Horizons ♥ 

Spent hundreds of hours with VCH colleagues having no clue what they look like without their masks

Working and volunteering @ the COVID-19 vaccine clinics

Blusson, Sunset, Vancouver Community College, KPU, Cambie, Kerrisdale, Minoru,  Vancouver Convention Centre, Richmond Night Market, River Rock, Italian Cultural Centre, Langara, SFU Downtown

Vaccine cards!

Settling into our new condo in Kitsilano! (Needed a home office due to WFH)

Cousins reunion at Brix :)

Guilt-laden birthday trip to Whistler (and an amazing massage @ Vida Spa)

Housewarming plans ruined by COVID, no surprise there

Working @ the UBC COVID-19 testing site during the Omicron wave

Books that influenced me:

The Perfect Predator (Steffanie Strathdee)

Neglected No More: The Urgent Need to Improve the Lives of Canada’s Elders in the Wake of a Pandemic (Andre Picard)

Dark Money (Jane Mayer)

Catch and Kill (Ronan Farrow)

The Sum of Us (Heather McGhee)

Stamped from the Beginning (Ibram X Kendi)

“Indian” in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power (Jody Wilson-Raybould)

Seeing Ghosts (Kat Chow)

Resistance is Futile: The Life and Death and Life of Julie Lalonde (Julie Lalonde)

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted (Suleika Jaouad)

Crying in H Mart (Michelle Zauner)

You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism (Amber Ruffin)

Favourite Movies/TV series

Don’t Look Up

Jojo Rabbit

Hometown Chachacha

Squid Game

Bo Burnam: Inside

Breaking Boundaries: The Science of our Planet

Sailor Moon Eternal

Favourite foodie experiences

Nana’s Green Tea (Kerrisdale)

Sweet Barrel Creamery (Kitsilano)

Gateau de Henry (Kitsilano)

Salty Sugar Patisserie (Kitsilano)

Anh and Chi (Mount Pleasant)

Mello (Chinatown)