
Dr Andrew Surman
Lecturer in Chemical Biology
Research interests
- Chemistry
Contact details
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.
Research

Innovation for Safe and Sustainable Food, Nutrition and Health
This Research Interest Group on Innovation for Safe and Sustainable Food, Nutrition and Health provides a unique opportunity for the King’s research community to address the challenges of sustainable food development.
Research

Innovation for Safe and Sustainable Food, Nutrition and Health
This Research Interest Group on Innovation for Safe and Sustainable Food, Nutrition and Health provides a unique opportunity for the King’s research community to address the challenges of sustainable food development.