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

Page 12 of 14 Results 111 to 120 of 131

  • Two routes of metabolic cross-feeding between Bifidobacterium adolescentis and butyrate-producing anaerobes from the human gut

    Belenguer, A., Duncan, S. H., Calder, A. G., Holtrop, G., Louis, P., Lobley, G., Flint, H. J.
    Applied and Environmental Microbiology, vol. 72, no. 5, pp. 3593-3599
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Evidence for the development of specialised bacterial communities on resistant starch in the human colon that promote butyrate formation

    Duncan, S. H., Leitch, E. C. M., Walker, A., Flint, H. J.
    Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, vol. 65, no. Supplement, pp. 119A-119A
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Impact of high-protein, low- and moderate-carbohydrate diets on the microbal community and on metabolite concentration in faeces: possible implications for gut health

    Lobley, G., Belenguer, A., Duncan, S. H., Holtrop, G., Johnstone, A. M., Flint, H. J.
    Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, vol. 65, no. Supplement, pp. 100A-100A
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Microbial transformation of cinnamic acids in strawberries

    Russell, W. R., Duncan, S. H., Labat, A., Scobbie, L., Calder, A. G., Flint, H. J., Duthie, G. G.
    Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, vol. 65, no. Supplement OCA-B, pp. 107A
    Contributions to Journals: Abstracts
  • Microbial transformation of cinnamic acids in strawberries: potential inflammatory implications

    Russell, W. R., Duncan, S. H., Labat, A., Scobbie, L., Calder, A. G., Flint, H. J., Duthie, G. G.
    Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, vol. 65, no. Supplement OCA-B, pp. 107A
    Contributions to Journals: Abstracts
  • pH and peptide supply can radically alter bacterial populations and short-chain fatty acid ratios within microbial communities from the human colon

    Walker, A. W., Duncan, S. H., McWilliam Leitch, E. C., Child, M. W., Flint, H. J.
    Applied and Environmental Microbiology, vol. 71, no. 7, pp. 3692-3700
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Response of human colonic microbiota and butyrate formation in continuous culture to a one-unit pH shift

    Walker, A. W., Duncan, S. H., Leitch, E. C. M., Flint, H. J.
    Scientific Meeting of the Nutrition Society (2005), pp. 70A-70A
    Contributions to Journals: Abstracts
  • Lactate-utilizing bacteria, isolated from human feces, that produce butyrate as a major fermentation product

    Duncan, S. H., Louis, P., Flint, H. J.
    Applied and Environmental Microbiology, vol. 70, no. 10, pp. 5810-5817
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Contribution of acetate to butyrate formation by human faecal bacteria

    Duncan, S. H., Holtrop, G., Lobley, G. E., Calder, A. G., Stewart, C. S., Flint, H. J.
    British Journal of Nutrition, vol. 91, no. 6, pp. 915-923
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
  • Restricted distribution of the butyrate kinase pathway among butyrate-producing bacteria from the human colon

    Louis, P., Duncan, S. H., McCrae, S. I., Millar, J., Jackson, M. S., Flint, H. J.
    Journal of Bacteriology, vol. 186, no. 7, pp. 2099-2106
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
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