Dr Sutton is a Career Track Fellow in Avian Immunology at the The Roslin Institute. Her research focuses on the function of innate immune cells, including macrophages and dendritic cells. Her group initially characterises whether distinct subsets of these cells exist in chickens and investigates their roles in natural and vaccine-mediated immunity.

She develops novel techniques and transgenic chicken lines to study these cells, alongside T cells, both in vivo and in vitro. This work aims to identify signatures of immune protection and determine how these can be harnessed to enhance or develop more effective poultry vaccines. Techniques used in the laboratory include multi-colour flow cytometry, confocal microscopy, histology, and mRNA transcript analysis using the 96×96 Fluidigm/Biomark system, RNA-seq, sc- or sn-RNA-seq

In parallel, her group are internationally recognised leaders in avian organoid systems. They have experience in intestinal organoids (3D and 2D) and lung organoids (3D) from chicken, turkey, quail, guinea fowl and duck, as well as intestinal organoids (3D-2D) from cattle. Using transgenic lines housed at the National Avian Research Facility, her team can generate organoids that enable selective depletion of cDC1 cells, tracking and visualisation of pathogens, and imaging of macrophages and dendritic cells. These models have been used to study virus virluenece, effects of microbiome-derived products and tropism of pathogens and their effects on innate immune responses. 

The group applies cutting-edge methodologies including 3D image rendering, high-definition confocal microscopy, multi-colour flow cytometry, high-throughput food, compound and drug screening, intestinal barrier integrity assays, and metabolic analysis of 3D organoids.