Suttie awarded for vitamin K research

John W. Suttie, a professor of biochemistry, has been selected to receive the Bristol-Myers Squibb/Mead Johnson Award for Distinguished Achievement in Nutrition Research in honor of work that defined the molecular action of vitamin K.

Suttie is Katherine Berns Van Donk Steenbock Professor in Nutrition in UW–Madison’s Department of Biochemistry, and he serves as director of the Center for Coagulation Research. He is also a member of the affiliate faculty of UW–Madison’s Institute on Aging and Adult Life. Suttie joined the faculty in 1961, and from 1988-97, served as chair of the Department of Nutritional Sciences. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1996.

Suttie’s work proved that the production of active prothrombin, one of the blood clotting proteins, involved the vitamin K-dependent carboxylation of a precursor protein.

“John Suttie has been the standard bearer for vitamin K,” says Robert A. Burns, research fellow, Global Research and Development, Mead Johnson Nutritionals, a subsidiary of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. “His ‘post-translational precursor modification’ hypothesis, which ran counter to popular beliefs, accelerated the pace of research in the field and has been a landmark in nutrition research.”

The Bristol-Myers Squibb Unrestricted Biomedical Research Grants Program that provides the Nutrition Award was initiated in 1977. The program has awarded $100 million in no-strings-attached funding in six biomedical research areas, including cancer, cardiovascular, infectious diseases, metabolic diseases, neuroscience and nutrition. The Distinguished Achievement Award of $50,000 is awarded annually in each of the six categories and is based on peer review.

Suttie received the award at a dinner held in his honor Oct. 10.