Stephen T. Abedon

Biography

Steve Abedon is a Professor of Microbiology at The Ohio State University, where he has served on the faculty, primarily as an instructor of undergraduates, since 1995. His principal research interest is in the evolutionary ecology of bacteriophages, a.k.a., phages, which are Earth's most prevalent category of viruses, while viruses are Earth's most abundant category of 'organisms'. This interest he pursues from both basic science and applied perspectives: organismal evolutionary adaptation and the use of phages as 'antibiotics' –phage therapy –respectively. He sees the core of his scientific training as being in biochemistry, having received his BS in that subject, but overlaid with a strong tendency to explore issues of organism-level phenotype and ultimate causation.

In the roughly 4 decades since receiving his Ph.D. –in Microbiology with a minor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (University of Arizona, 1990) –he has published over 150 articles, chapters, and other 'citable units'. The latter includes involvement in the editing of numerous volumes, including one as contributing editor ("with editorial assistance by...", The Bacteriophages 2/e, 2006, Oxford University Press), one as sole editor (Bacteriophage Ecology, 2008, Cambridge University Press), two as co-editor (Hyman and Abedon, Bacteriophages in Health and Disease, 2012, CABI Press, and Viruses of Microorganisms, 2018, Caister Academic Press), and one of a highly cited special topics issue of the journal Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology (The 'Nuts and Bolts' of Phage Therapy, 2010, Bentham Science Publishers), plus numerous other journal special issues. He has also written two books (Bacteriophages and Biofilms, 2011, Nova Science Publishers, and Bacteriophages as Drivers of Evolution, 2012, Springer Nature). Steve also founded, in 1996, the Bacteriophage Ecology Group, an ensemble of all things phage ecological. See also the website, Biology as Poetry. Most recently, online, he has been authoring numerous biological "calculators": https://calculators.phage.org/.