John C. Sutherland

Senior Biophysicist Emeritus

Brookhaven National Laboratory - Past Employee
Currently at: East Carolina University
Physics Department

Adjunct Appointment: Stony Brook University
Biophysics Program

Past BNL Research Interests

John Sutherland uses optical and other physical methods to study the structure, function and dynamics of DNA, proteins and other biological materials. He developed theory and electronic imaging systems for quantifying DNA damage by gel electrophoresis and the method-of-moments, and participated in studies of the damage induced by UV in DNA in human skin and plants in situ, the repair of this damage, and the environmental implications of depletion of stratospheric ozone. Similar approaches are being used to quantify DNA damage induced by ionizing radiations. He received an R&D-100 award for invention of the first system for quantitative imaging of fluorescence from fluorophore labeled DNA in electrophoretic gels with a CCD camera.

He pioneered the use of synchrotron radiation for the measurement of circular dichroism and time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy in the ultraviolet/visible spectral regions. He received a R&D-100 award for invention of the Fluorescence Omnylizer, a single-photon counting detector that simultaneously records the time-delay, wavelength and polarization of each detected photon. He also participated in the design and construction of beamline X13A at the NSLS that measures circular dichroism of soft X-ray using phase-sensitive detection. Current interests include free-electron lasers and other next generation accelerator-based light sources as probes of biomolecular structure and dynamics.

Selected Publications

• Miles A.J., Janes R.W., Brown A., Clarke D.T., Sutherland J.C., Tao Y., Wallace B.A. and Hoffmann S.V.
  Light flux density threshold at which protein denaturation is induced by synchrotron radiation circular dichroism beamlines.
  Journal of Synchrotron Radiation, 15(Pt 4):420-422 (2008).  PubMed
• Sutherland J.C. and Wallace B.A.
  BioCD-2008 Synchrotron Radiation Circular Dichroism Spectroscopy of Proteins and Nucleic Acids.
  Synchrotron Radiation News 21: 10 (November, 2008).
• Sutherland B.M., Bennett P.V. and Sutherland J.C.
  DNA damage quantitation by alkaline gel electrophoresis.
  Methods Mol Biol, 314:251-73 (2006). PubMed
• Sutherland J.C.
  Repair dependent radiation survival: a stochastic model with Euler gamma function solutions.
  Physics in Medicine and Biology, 51:4883-4901 (2006). PubMed
• Sutherland J.C.
  BioCD-2005 Workshop.
  Synchrotron Radiation News, 18(6):29 (2005).
• Filippova E.M., Monteleone D.C., Trunk J.G., Sutherland B.M., Quake S.R. and Sutherland J.C.
  Quantifying Damage to Double Stranded DNA by Single Molecule Laser Fluorescence Sizing.
  Biophysical, 84:1281-1290 (2003).
• Praissman J.L. and Sutherland J.C.
  Laboratory Voice Data Entry System, in BioComputing: computer tools for Biologists.
  S.M. Brown, Editor. Eaton Publishing: Westborough, MA., 493-502 (2003).
• Sutherland B.M., Georgakilas A.G., Bennett P.V., Laval J. and Sutherland J.C.
  Quantifying Clustered DNA Damage Induction and Repair by Gel Electrophoresis, Electronic Imaging and Number Average Length Analysis.
  Mutation Research, 531(1-2):93-107 (2003). PubMed
• Sutherland B.M., Bennett P.V., Georgakilas A.G. and Sutherland J.C.
  Evaluation of Number Average length Analysis in Quantifying Double Strand Breaks in Genomic DNAs.
  Biochemistry, 42(11):3375-3384 (2003). PubMed
• Sutherland B.M., Bennett P.V., Sutherland J.C. and Laval J.
  Clustered DNA damages induced by X-rays in human cells.
  Radiation Research, 156:611-616 (2002). PubMed
• Sutherland B.M., Hacham H., Bennett P., Sutherland J.C., Moran M. and Gange R.W.
  Repair of cyclobutyl pyrimidine dimers in human skin: variability among normal humans in nucleotide excision and in photorepair.
  Photodermatol Photoimmunol Photomed, 18:109-116 (2002). PubMed
• Sutherland B.M., Cintron-Torres N., Bennett P.V., Hada M., Schenk H., Trunk J.G., Monteleone D.C., Sutherland J.C., Laval J., Stanislaus M. and Gewirtz A.
  Clustered DNA damages induced in human hematopoietic cells by low doses of ionizing radiation.
  Journal of Radiation Research, 43:S149-S152 (2002). PubMed
• Sutherland J.C.
  2002 X-ray Sources for Studies of Ultrafast Processes.
  Synchrotron Radiation News, 15(5):12-13 (2002).
• Sutherland J.C.
  Biological Effects of Polychromatic Light.
  Photochemistry and Photobiology, 76:164-170 (2002). PubMed
• Sutherland J.C.
  Simultaneous measurement of circular dichroism and fluorescence polarization anisotropy.
  In: Cohn GE, editor. Proceedings of SPIE, 4625:126-136 (2002).
• Bennett P.V., Hada M., Hidema J., Lepre A.M., Pope L.C., Quaite F.E., Sullivan J.H., Takayanagi S., Sutherland J.C. and Sutherland B.M.
  Isolation of High Molecular Length DNA: Alfalfa, Pea, Rice, Sorghum, Soybean and Spinach Crop.
  Science, 167-172 (2001).
• Sutherland B.M., Bennett P.V., Saparbaev M., Sutherland J.C. and Laval J.
  Clustered DNA damages as dosemeters for exposure and biological responses.
  Radiation Protection Dosimetry, 97:33-38 (2001). PubMed
• Sutherland B.M., Bennett P.V., Schenk H., Sidorkina O., Laval J., Trunk J., Monteleone D., and Sutherland J.C.
  Clustered DNA damages induced by high and low LET radiation, including heavy ions.
  Physica Medica, 17S1:204-206 (2001).
• Sutherland J.C., Monteleone D.C. and Trunk J.G.
  The Integrating Ion Imager: A Device for Determining Heavy Ion Doses During Irradiations.
  Physica Medica, 17S1:139-142 (2001).  PubMed
• Sutherland J.C., Monteleone D.C., Trunk J.G., Bennett P.V. and Sutherland B.M.
  Quantifying DNA Damage by Gel Electrophoresis, Electronic Imaging and Number-Average Length Analysis.
  Electrophoresis, 22:843-854 (2001). PubMed
• Dylla H.F., Benson S.V., Neil G.R., Shinn M., Austin R.H. and Sutherland J.C.
  Applications of the Jefferson Lab free electron laser for photobiology.
  Proceedings of the Society of Photo-Instrumentation Engineers, 3925: 40-49 (2000).
• Johnson E.D., Ben-Zvi I., DiMauro L.F., Graves R.N., Heese R.M., Krinsky S., Sutherland J.C., Wang X.J. and Yu L.
  Deep ultraviolet free electron laser (DUV-FEL) at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
  Proceedings of the Society of Photo-Instrumentation Engineers, 3925:26-29 (2000).
• Oakberg T.C., Trunk J. and Sutherland J.C.
  Calibration of photoelastic modulators in the vacuum UV.
  Proceedings of the Society for Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers, 4133:101-111 (2000).
• Sutherland J.C.
  Can Free Electron Lasers Answer Critical Questions in Ultraviolet Photobiology?
  Proceedings of the Society of Photo-Instrumentation Engineers, 3925:50-59 (2000).