biology

Laura Piddock

Laura Piddock 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 Laura Piddock rather than just read about it. In short: Laura Piddock is a microbiologist, specialising in antibiotics and antibiotic resistance in bacteria. She is Professor Emerita at the University of Birmingham, UK and also Scientific Director within the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Laura Piddock is a microbiologist, specialising in antibiotics and antibiotic resistance in bacteria. She is Professor Emerita at the University of Birmingham, UK and also Scientific Director within the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership.

Education Laura J. V. Piddock gained a BSc degree in Biological Sciences (Biochemistry and Microbiology) in 1981 and was awarded a PhD degree by the University of Birmingham in 1985 for work on penicillin binding proteins with Richard Wise at Dudley Road Hospital, Birmingham.

Career She has been employed at University of Birmingham since 2001. Her research concentrates on the origin of antibiotic resistance in bacteria but also includes a broad interest in all aspects of the continued use of antibiotics in medicine. She is particularly interested in the control of expression of bacterial efflux pumps and their role in bacterial biology, especially as pathogens. Her research includes identifying inhibitors of efflux pumps. The genes for aspects of antibiotic resistance are often found on mobile genetic elements (plasmids) and her research is therefore also into how transfer of plasmids between bacteria can be inhibited. Her research group has worked on the broad-spectrum fluoroquinolone antibiotics, providing better information on how this class of antibiotics can be used more effectively in medicine for humans and animals. In particular, this has addressed the way that their use in veterinary practice can generate antibiotic resistant bacteria that enter the food chain of humans.

Awards She was President of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy from 2009 until 2012. She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Microbiology in 2001, the Royal Society of Biology in 2012 and has also been elected a Fellow of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. In 2014 she was awarded the Marjory Stephenson Prize by the Microbiology Society for research into the basis of antibiotic resistance as a platform for early drug discovery and in 2016 she won the Microbiology Society's Microbiology Outreach Prize. In 2019 she was awarded the Garrod Lecture and Medal by the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy for how her work on antibiotic efflux has led to new ideas for drug discovery.

Publications Piddock is the author or co-author of over 250 scientific publications, reports and book chapters. These include:

George Youlden, Vito Ricci, Xuan Wang Kan, Laura Piddock, Sara Jabbari and John R. King (2021) Time dependent asymptotic analysis of the gene regulatory network of the AcrAB-TolC efflux pump system in gram-negative bacteria. Journal of Mathematical Biology 82 Laura Piddock (2016) Reflecting on the final report of the O'Neill Review on Antimicrobial Resistance. The Lancet Infectious Diseases 16 767-768

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Laura Piddock

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Laura Piddock 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 Laura Piddock 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 Laura Piddock 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 Laura Piddock

In research: Laura Piddock 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 Laura Piddock 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: Laura Piddock is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Alumni of the University of Birmingham, Biologists of the University of Birmingham, British microbiologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Laura Piddock 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.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Laura Piddock in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Laura Piddock 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 Laura Piddock out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Laura Piddock in simple terms?

Why does Laura Piddock 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 Laura Piddock?

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 Laura Piddock.