Fleming Showcase speaker profile: Professor Liz Sockett FRS
26 October 2020
In celebration of the Microbiology Society’s 75th anniversary, 'Why Microbiologists Matter: a digital celebration of the journeys of our members’ will include a Fleming Showcase between Monday 23 afternoon and all day Tuesday 24 November 2020. We will be welcoming a range of guest speakers whose profiles we will share in the lead up to the event.This week we learn more about Professor Liz Sockett FRS, University of Nottingham, UK.
The Fleming Prize, named after founding member and the first President of the Society, Sir Alexander Fleming FRS, is awarded each year to an early career researcher who has achieved an outstanding research record within 12 years of being awarded their PhD.
The Fleming Showcase will be a celebration of outstanding science in recognition of the legacy of past Fleming Prize winners and it will demonstrate the impact of both established and up-and-coming scientists in addressing important challenges. The showcase is organised by a Committee of Fleming Prize Winners, Chaired by Sir Paul Nurse FRS.
Professor Liz Sockett FRS
Professor Liz (Renee Elizabeth) Sockett FRS is a bacteriologist and world-leading expert in the bacteria Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus, studying its antibiotic-like, bacterial killing properties in fighting a range of pathogens.
Having completed a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Microbiology at the University of Leeds in 1983, Liz was awarded her PhD at University College London in 1986 on biochemistry of motility and taxis in purple photosynthetic bacteria. She worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Illinois and at the University of Oxford before she started working as a lecturer at the University of Nottingham in 1991, where she became Professor in 2006.
“My lab’s strengths lie in molecular biology research and gene discovery, and predatory behaviour by bacteria is an amazing set of molecular problems to tackle because it’s unusual. When we make a discovery, we’re very often the first people in the world to see it, and there’s an indescribable feeling that comes from realising how nature works and then sharing it with other people.”
She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2017 and a Fellow of The Royal Society (FRS) in 2019. Known also for enthusiastic bacterial teaching, public engagement and science outreach, Liz was awarded the Peter Wildy Prize by the Microbiology Society in 2006 for her work communicating and teaching microbiology. Her Prize Lecture was titled ‘Not Just Germs – Bringing Bacteria to Life’.
On being invited to speak at the Fleming Showcase event Professor Sockett said:
“It’s a great honour and fitting for Bdellovibrio as these predatory bacteria were discovered by accident, in 1962 by Stolp and Petzold, due to their antibacterial action on a petri plate, in an analogous way to the discovery of penicillin by Fleming!
I was not a good enough researcher early in my career to be suitable for a Fleming Award and as a postdoc my then Head of Department Professor Paul Nurse suggested that I should go for a lectureship and build up my lab and research. Good advice! I’ve always combined research and teaching with help from kind, clever and supportive lab, collaborators and husband! Bdellovibrio is an amazing system to work on. Being included in the Showcase shows that there are new microbial discoveries to make at any time and from any research setting.”
Find out more about the Fleming Showcase event and register your place on our website.
