Dr Dean Thomas
- Research Fellow (School of Chemistry)
Biography
I obtained a Master’s degree in Chemistry from The University of Manchester, where I graduated with first-class honours in 2017. My Master’s thesis focused on transition metal-free C‒H functionalisation using hydride-borrowing catalysis. During my studies, I completed a research internship at Bayer AG, where I investigated high-throughput photochemical methodologies for drug discovery.
I began a PhD at The University of Manchester under the supervision of Professor David Leigh. My doctoral research, completed in 2021, explored fuelled, artificial molecular machines and their applications in macroscopic functions. After my PhD, I continued as a Postdoctoral Research Associate developing autonomous molecular machines for nanoscopic logic gates and cargo delivery.
In September 2022, I joined the University of Glasgow as a Postdoctoral Research Associate with Professor Lee Cronin, where I focused on the development of Chemputers for the automated synthesis of hazardous molecules.
Research interests
My research interests center around advancing Digital Chemistry, with a strong focus on reliability & reproducibility, safety & sustainability and autonomous operations. I work on developing future technologies that integrate, for example, artificial molecular machines and functional materials to push the boundaries of automation and chemical discovery.
Research groups
Achieving Operational Universality through a Turing-Complete Chemputer
Turing completeness is applied to automated platforms which synthesise complex molecules through unit operations that execute chemical processes using a chemically-aware programming language, XDL
A Digitally Programmable Modular Robot for the Synthesis of Molecular Machines
Atomically precise manufacturing enables nanotechnology, but autonomous fabrication is challenging. A system is needed to program matter assembly, bridging nanotech and macroscale chemistry
Reaction Kinetics using a Chemputable Framework for Data Collection and Analysis
The ChemPU platform streamlines chemistry by automating kinetic measurements, bridging synthesis and analysis thus facilitating the precise encoding of reactions via the Chemical Description Language (XDL)