Julie Letchford

Profile

I graduated from the University of Warwick with a degree in Microbiology and Virology. I worked for GSK for 13 years as a research scientist and was sponsored to study for a PhD. Whilst at GSK I worked on several disease targets including colon cancer, deep vein thrombosis and various inflammatory disorders. After starting a family, and taking a career break, I returned to laboratory research as a Post Doc. I became a Teaching Fellow in 2006 and was promoted to Senior Teaching Fellow in 2012.

Research interests

I am interested in Medication safety and quality assurance and supervise postgraduate students undertaking research projects in these areas. Currently the focus is on investigating injectable medication preparation errors in pharmacy and ward environments.

I am also interested in the enhancement of academic practice through e-learning and peer assisted learning. We have developed e-tutorials to help students read the scientific research literature (following a successful teaching development fund (TDF) bid) and perform fundamental techniques used in microbiology.

I am also enthusiastic about peer assisted learning (PAL) and have developed pharmacy PAL and produced guidelines summarising how to run successful PAL schemes following a student-led research project (TDF bid).

I teach microbiology to undergraduate Pharmacy and Pharmacology students. This includes content on general microbiology, pharmaceutical microbiology, infections, treatment of infections, antibiotic resistance and aseptics.