Steffanie Strathdee

In 2015, her husband contracted an antibiotic-resistant bug on vacation and almost died. But Strathdee, a University of California, San Diego, epidemiologist, saved him by appealing to researchers of an obscure treatment that uses special viruses called phages to kill the bacteria. In June, she helped launch the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics, which she hopes will make more superbug treatments possible. —Mandy Oaklander