Dr. Lauren Acton

In 2010 Lauren was awarded her PhD by Aston University, Birmingham, for her work on phenotypic and genotypic characterisation of Clostridium difficile. Following the completion of her PhD she continued her work on C. difficile, investigating how the organism responds to changes in its environment. She has been involved in a number of consultancy projects including investigating the effectiveness of antimicrobial handwashes, microbial contamination in food products and the general prevalence of bacteria in human contact environments. Lauren is also interested in the use and development of natural antimicrobials and is currently/has been involved in number of projects. 

• Green L.M*., Worthington, T., Hilton, A.C., and Lambert, P.A. (2012) ‘The effect of oxygen on the growth characteristics and virulence of Clostridium difficile’. 22^nd European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and infectious Disease. held 31 March-3 April 2012 in London, UK. (publication only) 
• Green L.M*., Worthington, T., Hilton, A.C., and Lambert, P.A. (2011) ‘Genetic characterisation of clinical isolates of Clostridium difficile using an optimised RAPD protocol and PCR ribotyping reveals strain diversity between two tertiary referral Trusts in the West Midlands, UK’. Journal of Medical Microbiology 60 (9), 1287-1291. 
• Green L.M*., Worthington, T., Hilton, A.C., and Lambert, P.A. (2010) ‘Comparison of PCR ribotyping and an optimized random amplification of polymorphic DNA protocols for genotyping of Clostridium difficile produces profiles similar in discriminatory power and reproducibility’. 20^th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease. held 10-13 April 2010 in Vienna, Austria. 
• Green, L.M*., Worthington, T., Hilton, A.C. and Lambert, P.A. (2009) ‘Phenotypic characterisation of Clostridium difficile reveals lack of extracellular virulence factor production and significant differences in antibiogram profiles’. Int J Antimicrob Agents 35(3), 305-305. 
• Green, L.M*., Rollason, J., Worthington, T., Hilton, A.C., and Lambert, P.A (2009) ‘An optimized RAPD protocol for rapid genotyping and local epidemiological mapping of Clostridium difficile’.  19th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease. held 16-19 May 2009 in Helsinki, Finland. 
• Green, L.M*., Worthington, T., Hilton, A.C., and Lambert, P.A. (2008) ‘Antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of Clostridium difficile within two tertiary referral Trusts’. 18th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease. held 19-22 April 2008 in Barcelona, Spain.