Dr Sylvia Duncan

Dr Sylvia Duncan
Dr Sylvia Duncan
Dr Sylvia Duncan

BSc PhD

Senior Research Fellow

About
Email Address
sylvia.duncan@abdn.ac.uk
Telephone Number
+44 (0)1224 438680
Office Address

Rowett Institute

Forresterhill Campus

Aberdeen

AB25 2ZD

 

School/Department
School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition
Research

Research Overview

The Microbiology group have isolated and characterised many of the most abundant bacterial species that inhabit the human large intestine. A panel of the most interesting strains have also been genome sequenced. Mining these genomes has led to a good understanding of the roles of these mostly anaerobic bacteria in the human colon including their primary metabolic function, such as the formation of short chain fatty acids.

Research team:

Amanda Morris – Research Assistant

Galiana Lo - PhD student

Dr Indrani Mukhopadhya – Research Fellow

 

 

Research Areas

Nutrition and Health

Research Specialisms

  • Microbiology

Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Current Research

My current research is focussed on the impact of dietary macronutrients, including protein and carbohydrate content, on modulating the composition of the gut microbiota and metabolic outputs to improve health and prevent disease. The impact of gut environmental factors, including pH and bile salt levels, on modulating the gut microbiota and metabolism are also being studied using in vitro model colonic fermentor systems. We are also interested in bacterial cross feeding of dietary macronutrients by specialist bacterial species. We are also interested lactic acid utilising bacterial species as this is a product that is usually low in healthy colons but can accumulate to high levels in disease states such as inflammatory bowel disease. Further studies are also underway on host-microbe interactions.

More recently, the formation of secondary metabolites, such as polyketides and non-ribosomally synthesised peptides, by gut anaerobes are being studied through genome mining strains, testing their ability to inhibit pathogens and identifying the structure of these peptides as these are potentially pharmaceutically important compounds that may possess anti-microbial and anti-cancer properties.

Teaching

Teaching Responsibilities

Course Coordinator MC4014

Contribute lectures and tutorials to Nutrition courses

Publications

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  • Changes in the Abundance of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii Phylogroups I and II in the Intestinal Mucosa of Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Patients with Colorectal Cancer

    Lopez-Siles, M., Martinez-Medina, M., Surís-Valls, R., Aldeguer, X., Sabat-Mir, M., Duncan, S. H., Flint, H. J., Garcia-Gil, L. J.
    Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 28-41
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Faecalibacterium prausnitzii A2-165 has a high capacity to induce IL-10 in human and murine dendritic cells and modulates T cell responses

    Rossi, O., van Berkel, L. A., Chain, F., Tanweer Khan, M., Taverne, N., Sokol, H., Duncan, S. H., Flint, H. J., Harmsen, H. J. M., Langella, P., Samsom, J. N., Wells, J. M.
    Scientific Reports, vol. 6, pp. 1-12
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Enhanced butyrate formation by cross-feeding between Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and Bifidobacterium adolescentis

    Rios-Covian, D., Gueimonde, M., Duncan, S. H., Flint, H. J., de Los Reyes-Gavilan, C. G.
    FEMS Microbiology Letters, vol. 362, no. 21, fnv176
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Mucosa-associated Faecalibacterium prausnitzii phylotype richness is reduced in inflammatory bowel disease patients

    Lopez-Siles, M., Martinez-Medina, M., Abellà, C., Busquets, D., Sabat-Mir, M., Duncan, S. H., Aldeguer, X., Flint, H. J., Garcia-Gil, L. J.
    Applied and Environmental Microbiology, vol. 81, no. 21, pp. 7582-7592
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Unique Organization of Extracellular Amylases into Amylosomes in the Resistant Starch-Utilizing Human Colonic Firmicutes Bacterium Ruminococcus bromii

    Ze, X., David, B., Laverde Gomez, J., Dassa, B., Sheridan, P., Duncan, S. H., Louis, P. G. H., Henrissat, B., Juge, N., Koropatkin, N. M., Bayer, E. A., Flint, H. J.
    mBio, vol. 6, no. 5, e01058-15
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Ruminococcal cellulosome systems from rumen to human

    David, Y. B., Dassa, B., Borovok, I., Lamed, R., Koropatkin, N. M., Martens, E. C., White, B. A., Bernalier-Donadille, A., Duncan, S. H., Flint, H. J., Bayer, E. A., Moraïs, S.
    Environmental Microbiology, vol. 17, no. 9, pp. 3407-3426
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Modelling the emergent dynamics and major metabolites of the human colonic microbiota

    Kettle, H., Louis, P. G. H., Holtrop, G., Duncan, S. H., Flint, H. J.
    Environmental Microbiology, vol. 17, no. 5, pp. 1615-1630
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Faecalibacterium prausnitzii Strain HTF-F and Its Extracellular Polymeric Matrix Attenuate Clinical Parameters in DSS-Induced Colitis

    Rossi, O., Khan, M. T., Schwarzer, M., Hudcovic, T., Srutkova, D., Duncan, S. H., Stolte, E. H., Kozakova, H., Flint, H. J., Samsom, J. N., Harmsen, H. J. M., Wells, J. M.
    PloS ONE, vol. 10, no. 4, e0123013
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Links between diet, gut microbiota composition and gut metabolism

    Flint, H. J., Duncan, S. H., Scott, K. P., Louis, P.
    Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, vol. 74, no. 1, pp. 13-22
    Contributions to Journals: Literature Reviews
  • Microbes Central to Human Reproduction

    Reid, G., Brigidi, P., Burton, J. P., Contractor, N., Duncan, S., Fargier, E., Hill, C., Lebeer, S., Martín, R., Mcbain, A. J., Mor, G., O'Neill, C., Rodríguez, J. M., Swann, J., van Hemert, S., Ansell, J.
    American Journal of Reproductive Immunology, vol. 73, no. 1, pp. 1-11
    Contributions to Journals: Review articles
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