We speak with Dr. Ian Lewis in episode 6. He is the Principal Investigator with the Lewis Research Group and an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Calgary. Dr. Lewis acknowledges that struggling through work and failure is part of the human condition, but credits his support systems for the success he has found. He discusses the evolving barriers his team has faced throughout years of lab work while explaining how the collaborative Alberta Precision Exchange Program (APEX) grew from overcoming many of those early barriers.   

The emergence of diverse drug resistant pathogens has made finding new antimicrobial therapies both a Canadian and global health priority. Dr. Lewis's laboratory investigates the connection between metabolic adaptation and virulence of human pathogens. The ultimate goal of his research is to develop new diagnostic methods to identify high risk patients and novel antimicrobial therapies to control infections.