KU Leuven scientist researching #phage therapy. 👩🏽‍🏫 I ❤️ to educate the public and medical professionals about bacteriophages or phages. • What are phages?! The viruses of bacteria. Just like we get viruses 🦠 😷 so do bacteria! • Are they safe? Yes! They are generally recognized as safe by the FDA. • Are they approved for clinical use? No, not in the US. We have to get approval by the FDA on a case by case basis. Each phage treatment is rigorously assessed for safety. • What’s so great about phage? 👇🏽👇🏽 👉🏽Phage KILL 😵 antibiotic 💊resistant bacteria! 👉🏽Phage are SPECIFIC and will not wipe out 💣 microbiome bacteria 👉🏽Phage can EVOLVE to fight ⚔️ bacteria that become resistant to them 👉🏽Phage are NATURAL and easy to find In the environment 🌿 More about me I cofounded and helped establish a group called TAILOR (Tailored Antibacterials and Innovative Laboratories for Phage Research) at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, as a not-for-profit service center to source and prepare phages for patients with serious, drug-resistant infections. Thus far, TAILOR and its clinical partners in different institutions across the U.S. have worked together to treat a total of 12 patients using this pathway. Now I am working at KU Leuven in Belgium as a researcher in Laboratory of Gene Technology. I am hoping to bring phage therapeutics to more people across the world in this position as well as solve scientific problems in the implementation of phage therapy. I am also working to advocate for patients and phage therapy. I have a passion for bringing together the phage community to work on big problems together. Check me out on Twitter @motherofphage and @bcmtailorlabs