Biography
Andrew obtained his first degree (MSci Chemistry) from King’s College, London. He enjoyed his final year research project in a supramolecular chemistry research lab so much, he decided to spend more time in the lab by pursuing a PhD. Under the guidance of Prof. Ramon Vilar, he worked on ‘smart’ contrast agents for medical imaging – responsive probes meant as tools to understand what is happening in complex biological systems – starting at the Catalan Institute of Chemical Research (ICIQ, Tarragona), before moving to Imperial College, London, to complete his thesis.
After this, he moved to Plaxica: a company set up to establish new industrial methods for producing ‘next generation’ recyclable plastics from renewable resources. After nearly three years – as Plaxica progressed from a concept to planning a pilot plant – and a lot of different research areas (biocatalytic chiral resolution, sugar/formose systems chemistry, separations science), he returned to academic research. After a brief period working on self-assembled nanostructures at the University of Puerto Rico, he moved to the University of Glasgow, to work in Prof Lee Cronin’s ‘Complex Chemical Systems Group. In Glasgow he worked on a wide variety of projects, encompassing analytical, inorganic, and organic chemistry, and led a team looking into how life can emerge from simple chemistry.
In late 2018, Andrew returned to the Department of Chemistry at King’s as a Lecturer.
Research Interests
Andrew’s interests are broad. One common thread is Supramolecular Chemistry – the chemistry of non-covalent interactions, or “playing Lego with molecules”. Another is developing different approaches to analyse & manipulate very heterogeneous (difficult, horribly messy) chemistries – be they synthetic, biological, or ‘bio-mimetic’. He is particularly keen on automation – of both lab work (synthesis, analysis), and data-handling (scripting for processing big data sets) – for the labour it saves, and new opportunities it offers.
His work addresses questions in Systems Chemistry, how living systems/’life-like’ systems can develop from chemistry (the Origin of Life), and practical challenges concerning real-world inhomogeneous materials.
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Afonso, C., Chaux, C., Davies, A. N., Delsuc, M-A., Fernandez Lima, F., Gauchotte-Lindsay, C., Giusti, P., Goodacre, R., Hawkes, J. A., Hertkorn, N., Jansen, J. J., Kew, W., Kuhn, S., Lubben, A., McGill, D., Nilsson, M., Parkinson, J., Rodgers, R. P., Rogers, S., Schmitt-Kopplin, P. & 7 others, Schoenmakers, P. J., Shintu, L., Soong, R., Summerfield, S., Surman, A., Uhrín, D. & van der Hooft, J. J. J., 5 Aug 2019, In : Faraday Discussions. 218, 0, p. 505-523 19 p. Research output: Contribution to journal - Comment/debate. DOIs: https://doi.org/10.1039/c9fd90046b
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Surman, A. J., Rodriguez-Garcia, M., Abul-Haija, Y. M., Cooper, G. J. T., Gromski, P. S., Turk-MacLeod, R., Mullin, M., Mathis, C., Walker, S. & Cronin, L., 6 Mar 2019, In : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 116, 12, p. 5387-5392 6 p. Research output: Contribution to journal - Article. DOIs: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1813987116
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Xuan, W., Pow, R., Watfa, N., Zheng, Q., Surman, A. J., Long, D. & Cronin, L., 23 Jan 2019, In : Journal of the American Chemical Society. 141, 3, p. 1242-1250 9 p. Research output: Contribution to journal - Article. DOIs: https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.8b09750
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Surman, A. J., Garcia, M. R., Abul-Haija, Y. M., Cooper, G., Gromski, P. S., Turk-MacLeod, R., Mullin, M., Mathis, C., Walker, S. & Cronin, L., 1 Aug 2018, In : ChemRxiv. Research output: Contribution to journal - Article. DOIs: https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv.6962813.v1
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Cooper, G. J. T., Surman, A. J., McIver, J., Colón-Santos, S. M., Gromski, P. S., Buchwald, S., Suárez Marina, I. & Cronin, L., 3 Jul 2017, In : ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE. 129, 28, p. 8191-8194 4 p. Research output: Contribution to journal - Article. DOIs: https://doi.org/10.1002/ange.201610837
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Cooper, G. J. T., Surman, A. J., McIver, J., Colón-Santos, S. M., Gromski, P. S., Buchwald, S., Suárez Marina, I. & Cronin, L., 3 Jul 2017, In : ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION. 56, 28, p. 8079-8082 4 p. Research output: Contribution to journal - Article. DOIs: https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201610837
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Kulikov, V., Johnson, N. A. B., Surman, A. J., Hutin, M., Kelly, S. M., Hezwani, M., Long, D-L., Meyer, G. & Cronin, L., 19 Jan 2017, In : ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION. 56, 4, p. 1141-1145 5 p. Research output: Contribution to journal - Article. DOIs: https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201606658
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Kulikov, V., Johnson, N. A. B., Surman, A., Hutin, M., Kelly, S. M., Hezwani, M., Long, D-L., Meyer, G. & Cronin, L., 19 Jan 2017, In : ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE. 129, 4, p. 1161-1165 5 p. Research output: Contribution to journal - Article. DOIs: https://doi.org/10.1002/ange.201606658
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Christie, L. G., Surman, A. J., Scullion, R. A., Xu, F., Long, D-L. & Cronin, L., 4 Oct 2016, In : ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION. 55, 41, p. 12741-12745 5 p. Research output: Contribution to journal - Article. DOIs: https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201606005
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Christie, L. G., Surman, A. J., Scullion, R. A., Xu, F., Long, D-L. & Cronin, L., 4 Oct 2016, In : ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE. 128, 41, p. 12933-12937 5 p. Research output: Contribution to journal - Article. DOIs: https://doi.org/10.1002/ange.201606005