Leighton Payne

Leighton Payne is a Postdoctoral Researcher (Researcher) in the Department of Biology's Microbiology section at the University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Science. His institutional contact includes email leighton.payne@bio.ku.dk and phone +4535337634, with research conducted at Universitetsparken 15, 2100 København Ø.

His research focuses on:

• Structural and mechanistic analysis of anti-phage defense systems (e.g., Zorya)
• CRISPR-Cas dynamics in plasmid competition and bacterial immunity
• Plasmid-mediated defense reservoirs in wastewater environments
• Discovery of novel prokaryotic immune mechanisms
• Bioinformatics development for defense system identification (PADLOC platform)
• Supramolecular assembly principles in bacterial immunity

Analysis of Payne's 2021-2025 publications reveals cohesive work on prokaryotic antiviral defenses, highlighted by a high-impact 2025 Nature paper on the Zorya system (37 pages, 14 Scopus citations). His research bridges structural biology with ecological contexts, demonstrating CRISPR-Cas limitations under toxin-antitoxin competition and establishing plasmids as persistent defense reservoirs in wastewater. The PADLOC tool development underscores his integration of computational and experimental approaches for genome-wide defense system classification.