Curtis A. Suttle is a Canadian microbiologist and oceanographer who is a faculty member at the University of British Columbia. Suttle is a Distinguished University Professor[1] who holds appointments in Earth & Ocean Sciences,[2] Botany,[3] Microbiology & Immunology[4] and the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries[5] and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. On 29 December, 2021 he was named to the Order of Canada.[6] His research is focused on the ecology of viruses in marine systems as well as other natural environments.
Suttle completed his doctoral studies under the guidance of Paul J. Harrison.[7] Suttle's research focused on nitrogen[8] and phosphorus[9] as well as grazing effects on freshwater phytoplankton.[10] He published his first paper on viruses in marine systems in 1990 – the paper was co-authored by Amy Chan and then graduate student Matt Cottrell and focused on the lysis of eukaryotic phytoplankton. Since then, he has published numerous paper on viruses infecting bacteria, phytoplankton and invertebrate grazers. In 1999, he co-authored the first paper to describe the viral shunt with his former postdoctoral fellow Steven Wilhelm. This work was awarded the John H Martin Award from the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) in 2021, in recognition for the paper establishing the importance of viruses in biogeochemical cycles. Along with this work, he has contributed high-profile publications in the journals Nature,[11]Science,[12] and Nature Reviews Microbiology.[13] From his publications, Suttle has an Erdős number of 3 (having published with Eugene Koonin).
Suttle's interests continue to focus on viruses, and include the continued development of biomolecular tools to study virus diversity and function in natural systems.[13] His lab (work led by graduate student Matthias Fisher) was the first to describe the Cafeteria roenbergensis virus.[citation needed] In 2019 his research team uncovered a series of viruses in endangered Pacific salmon populations.[14]
