David Livermore gained his BSc in 1978 and his PhD in 1983. He worked at the London Hospital Medical College from 1980 until 1997, when he joined the Health Protection Agency (now Public Health England), becoming Director of its Antibiotic Resistance Monitoring and Reference Laboratory in 1998. In October 2011, he became Professor of Medical Microbiology at UEA, but with 30% of this time supplied back to Public Health England as its Lead on Antibiotic Resistance.

Prof Livermore has broad interests on the evolution and dissemination of antibiotic resistance and its relationship to antibiotic prescribing. Beta-Lactamases are a particular interest, with recent work on the proliferation of ‘CTX-M’ extended-spectrum enzymes and carbapenemases, particularly NDM-1, which received extensive media coverage in 2010.