Colin Sutherland BSc PhD MPH

Reader in Parasitology

Colin joined the School in January 1998 to work with Professor Geoffrey Targett on the adhesion of Plasmodium falciparum gametocytes. After securing Wellcome Trust funding, Colin coordinated a series of clinical trials which measured the effect of antimalarial combination therapy on transmission of P. falciparum. This work was carried out in Farafenni, The Gambia from 2000 to 2002 . As result of this field work, Colin developed a keen interest in drug resistance which led to important collaborative projects within the Gates Malaria Partnership. He is now supported by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) as Senior Lecturer attached to the Malaria Reference Laboratory, LSHTM, and as Clinical Scientist in the Department of Clinical Parasitology at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

A highlight of recent work in Colin's HPA-supported role has been demonstrating that the human malaria parasite Plasmodium ovale exists as two separate species, which we have named P. ovale curtisi and P. ovale wallikeri. 

Affiliation

Teaching

Colin contributes lectures, seminars and practical classes for students studying for the Immunology of infectious Diseases (IID), Control of Infectious Diseases (CID) and Molecular Biology of infectious Diseases (MBID) MSc degrees, and for the DTM&H. He has also supervised a large number of MSc summer research projects in the laboratory.

Colin's lab group has been involved in training researchers from a number of malaria endemic countries in techniques for molecular genotyping of malaria parasites. Recent trainees and students have hailed from Burkina Faso, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, The Philippines, Senegal, Sudan, Tanzania, Thailand, The Gambia and elsewhere, and include scientists, clinicians, doctoral students and research assistants. 

Colin also contributes to a number of PhD examinations each year. Recent candidates have included students from Universities and Institutes in Montpelier, Liverpool, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Kilifi and London. 

Doctoral students are the power-house of the research lab, and include:

  • Nahla Gadalla (Sudan)  - efficacy of artemether lumefantrinefor treating malaria in eastern Sudan, and markers of treatment failure   
expected submission: mid 2011
  • Khalid Beshir (UK/Eritrea) - measuring efficacy of ACT against Plasmodium falciparum wilth a molecular parasite clearance time assay, and its association with mutations in the parasite transporter gene pfmdr1                       
expected submission: mid 2011
  • Nazma Habib Khan (Pakistan) - population genetics of Leishmania causing cutaneous leishmaniasis in north-western Pakistan                                                
expected submission: late 2012
  • Ifeyinwa Chijioke-Nwauche (Nigeria) - efficacy of artemether-lumefantrine and resistance marker selection in HIV positive and negative adults in southern Nigeria   
expected submission: late 2012
  • Bismarck Dinko (Ghana) - longitudinal studies of anti-gametocyte antibodies in Ghanaian school children 
expected submission: 2013

Research

Colin's research falls into 3 main areas: Plasmodium falciparum gametocyte biology, malaria drug resistance and molecular diagnostics for malaria infections. The following projects are currently active in the lab:

1) The effects of combination therapy on post-treatment transmission and carriage of drug resistance genes in P. falciparum.

Together with the research groups of Rachel Hallett and Teun Bousema, we are examining the impact of new comnbination antimalarials, particularly those containing artemisinin compounds, on the development of resistance in malaria parasites. This work is funded by the EU-FP7 MALACTRES consortium, and is linked into a number of trials and studies throughout Africa in which ACTs will be tested. We are testing both efficacy and transmission outcomes to polymorphic markers in candidate genes.

Collaborators Pedro Cravo (Lisbon) and Paul Hunt (Edinburgh) have used an in vivo drug selection protocol to identify mutations in certain genes of the rodent malaria parasite P. chabaudi that are linked to reduced sensitivity or resistance to artemisinins. We are currently identifying mutations in the  P. falciparum homologues of two of these genes, pfubp1 and pfcmu, and testing for associations with treatment outcomes in African children with malaria receiving ACT. 

2) New molecular tools for diagnosis of parasitic infections

The Health Protection Agency is supporting the development of new DNA amplification assays both in the Malaria Reference Laboratory at LSHTM, with Dr Debbie Nolder and Dr Martina Burke, and at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases (HTD) with Dr Spencer Polley and Prof. Peter Chiodini.New real-time quantitative PCR assays for Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax have been developed and have entered routine diagnostic use. Tests for P. ovale, P. malariae and P. knowlesi have been developed and are being validated. These quantitative assays are also being used to monitor parasite clearance times in patients under treatment in HTD.

In addition, new applications of LAMP technology for malaria diagnosis have been developed with Spencer Polley at the Clinical Parasitology Dept at HTD with funding support from FIND, Geneva. We are now evaluating this approach, in the form of a prototype malaria LAMP diagnostic kit developed by Eiken Chemical Co., Japan, in the outpatients clinic at HTD.

3) Identification of target surface antigens in P. falciparum gametocytes.

The work carried out by doctoral students Sarah Sharp (PhD completed October 2007) and Dr Maha Saeed (PhD completed 2010) identified gametocyte-expressed members of the multi-gene families stevor and var that may play a role in sexual-stage adhesion, and demonstrated that plasma antibodies from some Gambian children with a recent history of gametocyte carriage recognise the surface of cultured gametocyte-infected erythrocytes. Doctoral student Bismarck Dinko is now running a longitudinal study of these antibodies in school children in his native Ghana, in order to evaluate whether they are able to reduce the likelihood of passing malaria parasites on to biting mosquitoes.

4) Population biology of P. ovale curtisi and P. ovale wallikeri 

Mary Oguike is leading work on these two distinct forms of malaria parasite, first described in 2010 as part of Colin's work in the UK Malaria Reference Laboratory, with collaborator Dr Mallika Imwong from Mahidol University, Bangkok. Together with Dr Imwong, Dr Abdoulaye Djimde, University of Bamako, Mali and Dr Alyssa Barry, Walter & Eliza Hall Institute, Melbourne, a Wellcome Trust-funded project was initiated in 2010 to investigate the population biology of these two newly-recognised species. 

5) Drug resistant parasites in malaria patients treated at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases (HTD), London.

In his role as Clinical Scientist at HTD, Colin is collating and analysing DNA samples from malaria patients who have returned to or visited the UK from malaria-endemic countries. Markers of resistance to a variety of antimalarial drugs, including atovaquone-proguanil, sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, mefloquine, chloroquine, quinine and artemisinin are being evaluated using a combination of direct sequencing and probe-based qPCR assays in real-time. Using this approach, we have identified novel resistance-associated alleles of the important anti-folate resistance marker pfdhps, and described a series of atovaquone-proguanil treatment failures. 

6) Full-genome sequencing of malaria parasites taken directly from HTD patients

A number of HTD patients have kindly given written consent for further research studies to be performed on malaria parasite DNA purified from their blood samples. With collaborators Dr Suzi Campino, Dr Sarah Auburn and Prof. Dominic Kwiatkowski at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, we have been able to obtain full parasite genomes for a number of these parasite DNA preparations. A full analysis of these parasite genomes with LSHTM colleague Dr Taane Clark has now been submitted for publication. 

7) EDCTP-funded studies of ACT therapy for children with malaria in West Africa

This project, coordinated by Dr Djimde in Bamako, brings a number of European and African project partners together to design. implement and evaluate Phase III trials of ACT therapies in Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea-Conakry. Particularly exciting is the opportunity to be involved in the first large-scale trials of artesunate-pyronaridine for treating malaria in African children. Khalid Beshir and Brighid O'Neill make up the EDCTP team in Colin's lab, and Khalid's recently published qPCR method for evaluating parasite clearance in malaria patients will be one of our key contributions to this project.

Research areas

  • Diagnostics
  • Drug resistance
  • Infectious disease
  • Malaria
  • Molecular epidemiology
  • Parasites

Disciplines

  • Epidemiology
  • Genetics
  • Molecular biology

Other interests

  • Plasmodium Falciparum Gametocyte Biology
Back to top