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Staff Profile

Dr Brendan Payne

Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer

Background

I am an NHS Consultant specialising in Infectious Diseases and Medical Virology, and an Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Translational and Clinical Research Institute. My laboratory research is based within the Wellcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Research, where I am a PI. In addition I conduct clinical research and trials at the hospital trust. 

I undertook my undergraduate medical training at Nottingham University, and my postgraduate training in General Internal Medicine and then Infectious Diseases and Virology in the Northern region. 

My doctoral research was funded by an MRC Clinical Research Training Fellowship and examined mitochondrial DNA damage in the setting of anti-retroviral therapy for HIV infection. This work was followed by a Wellcome Clinical Postdoctoral Fellowship which investigated the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in people ageing with HIV. 

I am interested, both clinically and academically, in the long-term health of HIV-infected patients, who are now expected to survive for many decades, thanks to modern anti-retroviral therapy. Since 2020, I have also been heavily involved in COVID research. 

Qualifications:

BMedSci (University of Nottingham 2000)

BMBS (University of Nottingham 2002)

MRCP (Infectious Diseases)

DipHIVMed

FRCPath

PhD (Newcastle University 2014).


Research

My primary research interest revolves around the interaction of chronic infection and its treatment and the human ageing process. The accumulation of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations is a key feature of normal human ageing at the cellular level. 

I have previously demonstrated that some long-term treated HIV-infected patients show an accelerated accumulation of such mutations in association with prior exposure to certain anti-retroviral drugs, known to disrupt the replication of mtDNA. This observation may plausibly explain the excess of common diseases of older age, and the increased frailty, seen in HIV-infected persons despite suppressive anti-retroviral therapy.

More recently we have explored the pathophysiological basis of these observations, in particular the relative importance of increased mutagenesis of mtDNA vs. accelerated clonal expansion of pre-existing mutations. These studies have wider reaching implications for normal ageing and degenerative disease. Through these studies we have generated novel deep resequencing assays based on massively parallel sequencing technology which have proved useful in interrogating mtDNA mutations in a variety of settings.

In this manner, we have also shown that many ostensibly somatic (acquired) mtDNA mutations are probably actually maternally transmitted at low levels. These further observation have fundamental implications for our understanding of the biology of mtDNA.

In addition I am involved in a number of clinically-oriented research projects in the HIV field, including studies using advanced imaging techniques.

Since 2020 I have also been heavily involved in clinical and translational research on COVID. 


Teaching

I am involved in medical undergraduate teaching, and postgraduate research supervision.

I welcome enquires from prospective MRes and PhD students.

Publications