Laura Piddock joined the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) in January 2018. As GARDP’s Scientific Director, Laura leads the Discovery and Exploratory Research programme, as well as the Scientific Affairs & REVIVE programme. She also contributes to GARDP’s Policy & Advocacy activities.

Laura has been at the forefront of antimicrobial research for over 30 years, beginning her career in a hospital and successfully integrating this background with academic research. Laura is Emeritus Professor of Microbiology at the University of Birmingham, UK, where she led a team researching the mechanisms of action and resistance to antibiotics and biocides, and in the last decade her academic research included drug discovery. She has collaborated with Pharma on many projects on new antibiotics. She has published widely in international peer reviewed journals (>200 original articles, >20 non-research policy original articles, 50 invited review articles, 21 research letters, 157 conference proceedings, 6 chapters in academic books). Laura has contributed to nine reports and advised organisations such as the World Health Organization, and scientific data from her team has been used by national governmental agencies. She has given over 200 lectures at international conferences. She has an H-index of 96.

Laura is an enthusiastic communicator about antibiotic resistance and the lack of new antibiotics. She has been interviewed by local, national and international media (print, radio, television and digital), and advised on and appeared in several documentaries for numerous global networks including BBC (One, Two, Four, Radio 2, Radio 4, Radio 5 Live), Al Jazeera, CNN, Channel 4 and Sky News.

In 2001, Prof. Piddock was made a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. In 2006, Laura became the first woman President of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC). In 2017, she was appointed as a founding Fellow of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. From 2012-2017, Laura was the BSAC Chair in Public Engagement. Laura was the Chair of the EU Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPI-AMR) Scientific Advisory Committee 2017-2018. In 2019, Laura was awarded the Garrod Medal for her work on AMR.