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Colin Kleanthous

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Colin Kleanthous is a British microbial biochemist and Emeritus Iveagh Professor of Microbial Biochemistry at the University of Oxford. His research has focused on bacteriocins and their interactions with the cell envelope of Gram-negative bacteria.[1][2]

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2026.[3] He is also a fellow of Academy of Medical Sciences.[2]

Career

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Kleanthous was appointed a lecturer at the University of East Anglia in 1991 and became Professor of Biochemistry at the University of York in 2002. He moved to the University of Oxford in 2012, where he became Iveagh Professor of Microbial Biochemistry.[4]

Kleanthous served as chair of the Biochemical Society from 2011 to 2013 and was elected to the European Molecular Biology Organization in 2018. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2022.[5][6]

In 2023, Kleanthous co-founded Glox Therapeutics with Daniel Walker and James Clark.[7] The company was established as a spin-out from research at the Universities of Oxford and Glasgow and develops engineered bacteriocins as targeted antimicrobials against antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria.[8]

In November 2023, Glox Therapeutics announced £4.3 million in seed funding led by the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and Scottish Enterprise.[8][9]

Research

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Kleanthous's early research included studies of colicins, protein toxins produced by bacteria, and the immunity proteins that protect toxin-producing cells. His work examined the specificity of interactions between colicins and their immunity proteins.[10][11]

His research on bacteriocins has also examined how colicins exploit proteins in the bacterial cell envelope to cross the membranes of Escherichia coli.[12][13]

In a 2015 study published in Nature, Kleanthous and colleagues reported that outer membrane proteins in E. coli form supramolecular assemblies and that their turnover occurs through the displacement of older proteins toward the cell poles as new proteins are inserted during growth.[14][15][16]

Honours and fellowships

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References

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  1. ↑ "Professor Colin Kleanthous FMedSci FRS". Royal Society. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 "Professor Colin Kleanthous". Academy of Medical Sciences. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  3. 1 2 "Exceptional scientists elected as Fellows of the Royal Society". Royal Society. 27 May 2026. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  4. ↑ "Kleanthous, Colin". University of Cambridge. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  5. ↑ "Kleanthous Group". Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  6. 1 2 "Colin Kleanthous". European Molecular Biology Organization. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  7. ↑ "About us". Glox Therapeutics. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  8. 1 2 "£4.3m boost for Oxford-Glasgow spinout tackling antimicrobial resistance". University of Oxford. 14 November 2023. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  9. ↑ "Medical spin-out with potential to save millions of lives globally gets £4.3 million injection". The Scotsman. 14 November 2023. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
  10. ↑ Kleanthous, Colin; Hemmings, Andrew M.; Moore, Geoffrey R.; James, Richard (1998). "Immunity proteins and their specificity for endonuclease colicins: telling right from wrong in protein–protein recognition". Molecular Microbiology. 28 (2): 227–233. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2958.1998.00811.x. ISSN 1365-2958.
  11. ↑ Papadakos, Grigorios; Wojdyla, Justyna A.; Kleanthous, Colin (2012). "Nuclease colicins and their immunity proteins". Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics. 45 (1): 57–103. doi:10.1017/S0033583511000114. ISSN 1469-8994.
  12. ↑ Kleanthous, Colin (2010). "Swimming against the tide: progress and challenges in our understanding of colicin translocation". Nature Reviews Microbiology. 8 (12). Nature Publishing Group: 843–848. doi:10.1038/nrmicro2454. ISSN 1740-1534.
  13. ↑ Kleanthous, Colin (2026). "Bacteriocin biophysics: From protein–protein interaction models to navigators of the bacterial cell envelope". Journal of Biological Chemistry. 302 (3). doi:10.1016/j.jbc.2026.111185. ISSN 0021-9258. PMC 12927319. PMID 41580080.
  14. ↑ Rassam, Patrice; Copeland, Nikki A.; Birkholz, Oliver; Tóth, Csaba; Chavent, Matthieu; Duncan, Anna L.; Cross, Stephen J.; Housden, Nicholas G.; Kaminska, Renata; Seger, Urban; Quinn, Diana M.; Garrod, Tamsin J.; Sansom, Mark S. P.; Piehler, Jacob; Baumann, Christoph G. (2015). "Supramolecular assemblies underpin turnover of outer membrane proteins in bacteria". Nature. 523 (7560). Nature Publishing Group: 333–336. doi:10.1038/nature14461. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 4905513. PMID 26061769.
  15. ↑ Webby, Melissa N.; Oluwole, Abraham O.; Pedebos, Conrado; Inns, Patrick G.; Olerinyova, Anna; Prakaash, Dheeraj; Housden, Nicholas G.; Benn, Georgina; Sun, Dawei; Hoogenboom, Bart W.; Kukura, Philipp; Mohammed, Shabaz; Robinson, Carol V.; Khalid, Syma; Kleanthous, Colin (2022-11-02). "Lipids mediate supramolecular outer membrane protein assembly in bacteria". Science Advances. 8 (44). American Association for the Advancement of Science: eadc9566. doi:10.1126/sciadv.adc9566. PMC 9629720. PMID 36322653.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: article number as page number (link)
  16. ↑ Mamou, Gideon; Corona, Federico; Cohen-Khait, Ruth; Housden, Nicholas G.; Yeung, Vivian; Sun, Dawei; Sridhar, Pooja; Pazos, Manuel; Knowles, Timothy J.; Kleanthous, Colin; Vollmer, Waldemar (2022). "Peptidoglycan maturation controls outer membrane protein assembly". Nature. 606 (7916). Nature Publishing Group: 953–959. doi:10.1038/s41586-022-04834-7. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 9242858. PMID 35705811.
  17. ↑ "Trustees' Report and Accounts 2021–22" (PDF). Royal Society of Biology. Retrieved 29 September 2026.
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