Dr Mark Sutton
PhD
Scientific Leader - Healthcare Biotechnology, UK Health Security Agency
Professor of Antimicrobial Therapy, King’s College London
Profile page(s)
Mark Sutton is Scientific Leader for Healthcare Biotechnology at UK Health Security Agency, Porton Down and Professor for Antimicrobial Therapy, within the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, King’s College London. He has PhD in molecular microbiology from the John Innes Institute in Norwich and has long standing research interests in bacterial-hosts interactions, pathogenesis and antimicrobial resistance.
He leads an interdisciplinary research group, aiming to develop new interventions to address the challenges of antimicrobial resistance. This includes work on the development and evaluation of small molecule and “biologic” (phage, peptide) antimicrobial agents, understanding resistance mechanisms in multidrug-resistant bacteria and fungi and new methods for rapid diagnostics and antibiotic susceptibility determination.
This work has resulted in more than 100 peer reviewed publications and 19 patent families filed internationally. Several patents have been licensed to biotech companies and SEMs, leading to commercial products.
Landmark publications:
Horrocks V, Hind CK, Wand ME, Fady PE, Chan J, Hopkins JC, Houston GL, Tribe RM, Sutton JM, Mason AJ. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Metabolomics of Symbioses between Bacterial Vaginosis-Associated Bacteria. mSphere. 2022 May 2:e0016622. doi: 10.1128/msphere.00166-22.
Bock LJ, Ferguson PM, Clarke M, Pumpitakkul V, Wand ME, Fady PE, Allison L, Fleck RA, Shepherd MJ, Mason AJ, Sutton JM. Pseudomonas aeruginosa adapts to octenidine via a combination of efflux and membrane remodelling. Commun Biol. 2021 Sep 9;4(1):1058. doi: 10.1038/s42003-021-02566-4.PMID: 34504285
Manzo G, Hind CK, Ferguson PM, Amison RT, Hodgson-Casson AC, Ciazynska KA, Weller BJ, Clarke M, Lam C, Man RCH, Shaughnessy BGO, Clifford M, Bui TT, Drake AF, Atkinson RA, Lam JKW, Pitchford SC, Page CP, Phoenix DA, Lorenz CD, Sutton JM, Mason AJ. A pleurocidin analogue with greater conformational flexibility, enhanced antimicrobial potency and in vivo therapeutic efficacy. Commun Biol. 2020 Nov 27;3(1):697. doi: 10.1038/s42003-020-01420-3.
Spencer DC, Paton TF, Mulroney KT, Inglis TJJ, Sutton JM, Morgan H. A fast impedance-based antimicrobial susceptibility test. Nat Commun. 2020 Oct 21;11(1):5328. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-18902-x.PMID: 33087704
Picconi P, Hind C, Nahar KS, Jamshidi S, Di Maggio L, Saeed N, Evans B, Solomons J, Wand ME, Sutton JM, Rahman KM. New broad-spectrum antibiotics containing a pyrrolobenzodiazepine ring with activity against multidrug resistant Gram-negative bacteria. J Med Chem. 2020 Jun 9. doi: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.0c00328. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 32515951
Wand ME, Jamshidi S, Bock LJ, Rahman KM, Sutton JM. SmvA is an important efflux pump for cationic biocides in Klebsiella pneumoniae and other Enterobacteriaceae. Sci Rep. 2019 Feb 4;9(1):1344. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-37730-0. PubMed PMID: 30718598; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6362122.
Sumit Kalsi, Samuel L. Sellars, Carrie Turner, J. Mark Sutton, and Hywel Morgan. A Programmable Digital Microfluidic Assay for the Simultaneous Detection of Multiple Anti-Microbial Resistance Genes. Micromachines 2017, 8(4), 111; doi:10.3390/mi8040111
Picconi P, Hind C, Jamshidi S, Nahar K, Clifford M, Wand ME, Sutton JM, Rahman KM. Triaryl benzimidazoles as a new class of antibacterial agents against resistant pathogenic microorganisms. J Med Chem. 2017 Jun 26. doi: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.7b00108. PMID: 28650661
Wand ME, Bock LJ, Bonney LC, Sutton JM. Mechanisms of Increased Resistance to Chlorhexidine and Cross-Resistance to Colistin following Exposure of Klebsiella pneumoniae Clinical Isolates to Chlorhexidine. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2016 Dec 27;61(1). pii: e01162-16. doi: 10.1128/AAC.01162-16. PubMed PMID: 27799211.
Major grants:
MRC grant - Developing a new class of antibiotics based on Efflux Resistant 4-oxoquinolizines for Multiple Drug-Resistant ESKAPE Pathogens (MRC PI; 3 years starting April 2022).
H2020-MSCA-ITN-2020; STIMULUS Stimuli Responsive Materials for the Rapid Detection and Treatment of Healthcare Associated Infections (ESR appointment October 2021 - September 2024.)
National Institute of Health Research, Invention for Innovation grant “Bacterial impedance cytometry for rapid antibiotic susceptibility testing” (NIHR200968; PI, October 2020-September 2023)
Department of Health and Social Care, AMR Infrastructure grant; “Open Innovation in AMR” (NIHR200658; PI, September 2019 to August 2021).
Evaluation of novel antibiotic resistance breaker technology for the development of novel antibiotics. Emergent BioSolutions with Rahman KM. KCL (Co-I, January 2019 – December 2019)
Impact example:
Invented and commercialised a rapid test for decontamination monitoring, now being trialled in many of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies and healthcare settings (https://www.protakscientific.com/)