"A stunning story about a medical miracle that could revolutionize antimicrobial therapy," is how one reader describes the book, which hit American store shelves in February of this year. It's a documentary medical thriller about how bacteriophages helped epidemiologist Stephanie Strathdee save her husband, Tom Patterson, from a deadly antibiotic-resistant infection. "The Perfect Predator" is the book's title, and that's how the authors refer to their saviors—bacteriophages. ( The Perfect Predator by Steffanie Strathdee and Tom Patterson )

In late 2015, epidemiologist Stephanie Strathdee and her husband, psychologist Tom Patterson, were vacationing in Egypt when Tom contracted some kind of intestinal infection. Confident it would work, Stephanie gave Tom an antibiotic, but his condition only worsened. Neither local doctors nor specialists from a German hospital were able to treat the mysterious illness. When the couple finally reached the top-tier medical center in San Diego where they both worked, it turned out Tom was battling one of the world's most dangerous bacteria—a multidrug-resistant strain of Acinetobacter baumannii .

Tom grew increasingly worse, slipping into a coma, and Stephanie tirelessly searched for a cure. She learned about the possibility of treating complex infectious diseases with bacteriophages—viruses that specifically target specific bacteria. Friends, acquaintances, and strangers from numerous research centers across the United States helped Stephanie obtain a bacteriophage specific to the strain killing Tom and develop a treatment regimen. Intravenous administration of the bacteriophage preparation produced a rapid response—Tom Patterson not only survived but also fully recovered.

The couple now actively promotes phage therapy, a treatment for bacterial infections, including those resistant to antibiotics. Stephanie is one of the founders of the interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics (IPATH), which opened in 2018 at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.