Judith Patricia Armitage (born 1951) is a British molecular and cellular

biochemist Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. They study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. Biochemists study DNA, proteins and Cell (biology), cell parts. The word "biochemist" is a portmanteau of ...

at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

Early life and education

Armitage was born on 21 February 1951 in Shelley,

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

, England. She attended Selby Girls' High School, an all-girl

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a Latin school, school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented Se ...

, then located in the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...

. In her sixth form, the school became the co-educational Selby Grammar School. Armitage earned a BSc in microbiology at

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

in 1972, and was awarded a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1976 for research on the bacterium ''

Proteus mirabilis ''Proteus mirabilis'' is a Gram-negative, facultatively Anaerobic organism, anaerobic, rod-shaped bacterium. It shows swarming motility and urease activity. ''P. mirabilis'' causes 90% of all ''Proteus (bacterium), Proteus'' infections in human ...

''. She remained at UCL in the laboratory of Micheal Evans for her postdoctoral work.

Research and career

Armitage's research is largely based on the motion of bacteria by flagellar rotation and the

chemotactic Chemotaxis (from '' chemo-'' + ''taxis'') is the movement of an organism or entity in response to a chemical stimulus. Somatic cells, bacteria, and other single-cell or multicellular organisms direct their movements according to certain chemica ...

mechanisms used to control that motion. Armitage was appointed Lecturer in Biochemistiry at Oxford in 1985 and was awarded the

Title of Distinction The University of Oxford introduced Titles of Distinction for senior academics in the 1990s. These are not established chairs, which are posts funded by endowment for academics with a distinguished career in British and European universities. Howeve ...

of Professor of Biochemistry in 1996. Armitage is a fellow of

Merton College, Oxford Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 126 ...

and has served as Director of the Oxford University Centre for Integrative

Systems Biology Systems biology is the computational modeling, computational and mathematical analysis and modeling of complex biological systems. It is a biology-based interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological system ...

since 2006. Armitage was elected President of the

Microbiology Society The Microbiology Society (previously the Society for General Microbiology) is a learned society based in the United Kingdom with a worldwide membership based in universities, industry, hospitals, research institutes and schools. It is the large ...

for 2019.

Awards and honours

Armitage was awarded a

Lister Institute The Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, informally known as the Lister Institute, was established as a research institute (the British Institute of Preventive Medicine) in 1891, with bacteriologist Marc Armand Ruffer as its first director, ...

Research Fellowship in 1982. In 2010 Armitage was elected a member of the

European Molecular Biology Organisation The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is a professional, non-profit organization of more than 2,100 life scientists. Its goal is to promote research in life science and enable international exchange between scientists. It co-funds cour ...

and in 2011 was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and a

Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology Fellowship of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB), previously Fellowship of the Society of Biology (FSB), is an award and fellowship granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Biology has adjudged to have made a "prominent contribution to t ...

. Armitage was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2013. Her nomination reads: In January 2019 she was elected president of the

for a term of three years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Armitage, Judy Living people 1951 births Academics of the University of Oxford Alumni of University College London British biochemists Fellows of Merton College, Oxford Women fellows of the Royal Society People from Selby British women biochemists 20th-century British women scientists 21st-century British women scientists Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology