Rhodococcus infections are uncommon, however they can cause serious disease in certain patients. There are a number of challenges though when dealing with Rhodococcus infections, including the fact that much of what we know around their susceptibility profiles and the clinical management of infected individuals actually comes from a number case series and in some situations, from the veterinary literature. So today, our two guests are going to tell us about their experiences with Rhodococcus over a 10-year period and bring us up-to-speed on things like:

• Which species of Rhodococcus are most commonly isolated and associated with clinical disease
• What is the recommended approach to susceptibility testing for Rhodococcus and what sorts of susceptibility trends do we see at both the genus and species levels
• And also, of course, we’re going to talk about the clinical manifestations and outcomes of clinically significant Rhodococcus infections

• Adi S. Shah, M.B.B.S., Mayo Clinic
• Nancy L. Wengenack, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic

Rhodococcus infection: a 10-year retrospective analysis of clinical experience and antimicrobial susceptibility profile | Journal of Clinical Microbiology

This episode of Editors in Conversation is brought to you by the Journal of Clinical Microbiology and hosted by JCM Editor in Chief, Alex McAdam and Dr. Elli Theel. JCM is available at https://jcm.asm.org and on https://twitter.com/JClinMicro.

Visit journals.asm.org/journal/jcm to read articles and/or submit a manuscript.

Follow JCM on Twitter via @JClinMicro

Phage therapy has gained a lot of traction but the challenges created by this approach have not been properly assessed at a big scale. We often read about therapy successes on isolated cases but, rarely, we read or hear about failures. AAC recently published a case series of patients who failed phage therapy. Today, we will discuss this topic with the principal investigator on the research.

• Phage therapy as an approach for MDR bacteria.
• The challenges of phage therapies.
• Issues that can influence the success of phage therapy

• Saima Aslam, MBBS. Director, Solid Organ Transplant Infectious Diseases Service, Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Diego.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa ventricular assist device infections: findings from ineffective phage therapies in five cases https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/aac.01728-23

• How are we doing with phage therapy at this point?
• What are the challenges to deploy phage therapy in clinical settings?
• The 5 cases of failure of phage therapy in patients with LVADs summarized
• What factors did Dr. Aslam identify that were related with the failure?
• How do you develop neutralization against phages and how can you prevent it?
• Bacterial isolates with varying phage susceptibility, how can this be detected?
• What did Dr. Aslam learn?
• Future research

This episode is brought to you by the Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy journal available at aac.asm.org. If you plan to publish in AAC, ASM Members get up to 50% off publishing fees. Visit asm.org/membership to sign up.

Visit journals.asm.org/journal/aac to browse issues and/or submit a manuscript.

The protozoan Lophomonas has been reported to be a pathogen of humans in a large number of case reports and case series. Most of these case reports describe infections of the respiratory tract. Editors in Conversation is joined by two experts to discuss this possible parasite.

Some of the questions addressed include:

• What are the characteristics of the species in the genus Lophomonas?
• What are the laboratory and morphological data that suggest that Lophomonas species cause human infections?
• What are the purported clinical manifestations of Lophomonas?
• Finally, is Lophomonas truly a pathogen of humans?

• Dr. Abhishek Mewara - Additional Professor in the Department of Medical Parasitology at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, India.
• Dr. Bobbi Pritt - Chair of the Division of Clinical Microbiology and Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic.

“Lophomonas as a respiratory pathogen—jumping the gun,” by Abhishek Mewara, Gillian H. Gile, Blaine Mathison, Huan Zhao, Bobbi Pritt, and Richard S. Bradbury (https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/jcm.00845-23).

This episode of Editors in Conversation is brought to you by the Journal of Clinical Microbiology and hosted by JCM Editor in Chief, Alex McAdam and Dr. Elli Theel. JCM is available at https://jcm.asm.org and on https://twitter.com/JClinMicro.

Visit journals.asm.org/journal/jcm to read articles and/or submit a manuscript.

Follow JCM on Twitter via @JClinMicro