Debra E. Bessen Ph.D. is presently a Professor of Pathology, Microbiology & Immunology at New York Medical College (USA), who has spent most of her research studying group A streptococci. The scientist having the most influence on her thinking was Dr. Rebecca Lancefield, whom she never met, but had the privilege of reading “Mrs. L’s” laboratory notebooks (all of them!) while working at The Rockefeller University as a post-doc in the late 1980s. That body of work led her to formulate questions on the underlying basis for skin versus throat tissue tropisms for group A streptococcal infections, which has been pursued using the tools and approaches of epidemiology, evolutionary biology and molecular pathogenesis. Her hope is to help crack this incredibly complex puzzle, or at least find a few of the missing pieces.