biology

Hazel Dockrell

Hazel Dockrell is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hazel Dockrell rather than just read about it. In short: Hazel Marguerite Dockrell (born 1952) is an Irish-born microbiologist and immunologist whose research has focused on immunity to the human mycobacterial diseases, leprosy and tuberculosis. She has spent most of her career at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where as of 2020 she is a professor of immunology.

Key takeaways

Hazel Dockrell belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hazel Dockrell to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hazel Dockrell from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hazel Marguerite Dockrell (born 1952) is an Irish-born microbiologist and immunologist whose research has focused on immunity to the human mycobacterial diseases, leprosy and tuberculosis. She has spent most of her career at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where as of 2020 she is a professor of immunology. She was the first female president of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Jimmy Whitworth of the Wellcome Trust describes her as "a marvellous ambassador for global health and research."

Early life and education Dockrell was born in Ireland in 1952 and brought up in Dublin. Her father held medical and dentistry qualifications. She was educated at Alexandra School and College, Dublin, and Trinity College Dublin, where she studied natural sciences, graduating in microbiology. She moved to London for her postgraduate education. Her PhD (1978) was from the Royal Dental Hospital of London (now part of St Thomas' Hospital), researching Sjögren syndrome, a human autoimmune disease; her supervisor was John Greenspan.

Career and research Her first post-doctoral position was at the immunology department of Middlesex Hospital Medical School (1978–85), working with John Playfair under Ivan Roitt. Her research there was on anti-malarial immune responses. In 1985, she joined the recently established department of clinical tropical medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), working with Keith McAdam. Her early research at LSHTM was on immunity to leprosy, particularly the T-cell response to Mycobacterium leprae. She spent time at the Aga Khan University in Karachi where she began a long-term collaboration with the Pakistani immunologist, Rabia Hussain. The clinical presentation of leprosy shows a range of possible symptoms, and Dockrell and Hussain have investigated the way in which the body's anti-mycobacterial immune response determines what form of disease occurs. They have also researched methods to diagnose the disease. More recently, Dockrell has switched her research focus to tuberculosis, another mycobacterial disease, an area in which she has contributed significant advances. Her work has focused on the immune responses to the bacterium. She has studied the CD8+ T-cell response to mycobacteria, and characterised the profile of biomarkers such as cytokines both to natural infection and to vaccination with the BCG vaccine. In collaboration with the epidemiologist Paul Fine (Karonga Prevention Study, Malawi) and others, she has tried to elucidate why BCG vaccination generates different levels of protection when given in different contexts, such as African countries compared with the UK. She has studied the role in tuberculosis of concurrent infections with helminth parasites as well as non-infectious diseases such as diabetes. She has also promoted global collaborative research into new vaccines against the disease within the European Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative. As of 2020, Dockrell is a professor of immunology at LSHTM. In addition to her own research work, Dockrell was the deputy director of research at LSHTM and, as of 2020, advises its director Peter Piot on collaborative programmes with Africa. In the latter role, she has focused on improving the research capabilities of the multiple African institutes with which LSHTM collaborates. Dockrell was the first woman to serve as president of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (2009–11). She has been one of the co-authors of Cedric Mims' textbook Medical Microbiology from the third edition (2003).

Personal life Her partner is Stephen Gaccon, whom she met while studying for her PhD.

Selected publications Books Richard Goering, Hazel Dockrell, Mark Zuckerman, Peter L. Chiodini. Mims' Medical Microbiology and Immunology (6th edition) (Elsevier; 2018) (ISBN 978-0702071546) Research papers Black, Gillian F.; Weir, Rosemary E.; Floyd, Sian; Bliss, Lyn; Warndorff, David K.; Crampin, Amelia C.; Ngwira, Bagrey; Sichali, Lifted; Nazareth, Bernadette; Blackwell, Jenefer M.; Branson, Keith; Chaguluka, Steven D.; Donovan, Linda; Jarman, Elizabeth; King, Elizabeth; Fine, Paul EM; Dockrell, Hazel M. (2002), "BCG-induced increase in interferon-gamma response to mycobacterial antigens and efficacy of BCG vaccination in Malawi and the UK: Two randomised controlled studies", The Lancet, 359 (9315): 1393–1401, doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(02)08353-8, PMID 11978337, S2CID 24334622 Lalvani, A.; Brookes, R.; Wilkinson, R. J.; Malin, A. S.; Pathan, A. A.; Andersen, P.; Dockrell, H.; Pasvol, G.; Hill, A. V. S. (1998), "Human cytolytic and interferon-secreting CD8+ T lymphocytes specific for Mycobacterium tuberculosis", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 95 (1): 270–75, doi:10.1073/pnas.95.1.270, PMC 18198, PMID 9419365

References

External links Profile at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hazel Dockrell

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hazel Dockrell claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hazel Dockrell before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hazel Dockrell ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hazel Dockrell

In research: Hazel Dockrell appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hazel Dockrell in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hazel Dockrell is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1952 births, Academics of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Alumni of Trinity College Dublin, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hazel Dockrell outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hazel Dockrell in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hazel Dockrell means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hazel Dockrell out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hazel Dockrell in simple terms?

Why does Hazel Dockrell matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hazel Dockrell?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hazel Dockrell.