He has specialised in bacterial bioenergetics, particularly protein transport and enzymes containing nickel and molybdenum, including biotechnology applications.
[2] The Sargenti family originate from Francesco Sorgente and Concetta Riccitiello Sorgenti who settled in Trenton, New Jersey in the early 20th century.
[5] Sargent became interested in bacterial bioenergetics as an undergraduate student and this developed into investigating how proteins were targeted in bacteria.
While at University of East Anglia he led a team that mainly studied the biochemistry of bacterial Tat proofreading chaperones.
[1] In 2011 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for his contributions to bacterial membrane biology and energy metabolism.