Research Update

I have visited two Moscow libraries to-date. The Russian State Library is the counterpart to our Library of Congress, because a copy of everything published in Russia is supposed to be deposited there. They issued me a library card and gave me carte blanche to flip through their mounstrous card catalogs and reference journals. I am not joking when I say that my fingers were black with ink after my first visit to their library. I couldn't find more than summaries and short bulletins of the full articles that I actually wanted.

The trouble I had in getting this stupid card doesn't encourage me.

I also visited the Sechenov Medical Library. After riding the metro over an hour to get there, I was turned away at the door because I couldn't prove that I was studying in a medical-related field. That was frustrating, but I'll try again next term with a signed letter from my Russian university (I'll make sure that they stamp the letter several times to make it look really, really official).

But there are bright spots in my thesis research! I have been emailing all the leading bacteriophage research professors about my thesis over the past couple months. I emailed Dr. Betty Kutter at Evergreen University in Washington and she put me in touch with Dr. Sarah Kuhl, who is an administrator at the Sacramento VA hospital. Dr. Kuhl is preparing to conduct a clinical study of bacteriophage therapy in recalcitrant diabetic ulcers in the veterans. That is incredibly relevant to my research on S. aureus bacteriophage therapy in burn wounds. In addition, she did a search on Medline that yielded four promising articles on phage therapy for staph infections. Dr. Danelishvili at Oregon State helped me order those articles and I should have them translated after another month or two. So, I'll just keep on trucking!