Dr Alan M Jones PhD, BSc (Hons), MRSC, PGCert, FHEA

Dr Alan Jones

School of Pharmacy
Associate Professor in Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry

Contact details

Address
Institute of Clinical Sciences
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Alan Jones is an Associate Professor in Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry in the School of Pharmacy in the Institute of Clinical Sciences. His research interests focus on the application of synthetic and medicinal chemistry to solve challenges at the intersection of biology and drug discovery for patient benefit. Key topics include:

  • The development of advanced, novel drug molecules for the treatment of leukaemia.
  • The investigation of electrochemical methods as an enabling technology to identify drug metabolites
  • The use of chemical, pharmacological and adverse drug reaction large datasets to identify and predict drug liabilities in the patient populations
  • The use of our commercialised reagent, tributylsulfoammonium betaine (TBSAB) for advanced sulfation studies (https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/GB/en/product/aldrich/911992 and https://store.apolloscientific.co.uk/product/tributylsulfoammonium-betaine)
  • Alan leads on several Senior Institute, College and University roles to enhance good governance within the University:
  • Chair of the Institute of Clinical Sciences Health & Safety Committee.
  • College Chemical Safety Officer
  • MDS Health and Safety Management Committee (HSMC) member
  • MDS lead for the University’s Health & Safety Advisory Group (UHSAG)

Alan has a wealth of experience of teaching and external examining at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Qualifications

Associate Professor in Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry:

  •  Certificate in External Examining 2023
  • PG Cert 2016
  • FHEA 2016
  • Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, 2009
  • Ph.D. (St Andrews), 2009
  • BSc. Hons (Aberdeen), 2005

Teaching

Postgraduate supervision

Synthetic organic chemistry
Electrosynthetic Green Chemistry
Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology

Other activities

External expert/ Grant Reviewer (UK):

  • British Council Newton Fund
  • EPSRC
  • Rosetrees Trust
  • KidScan Cancer charity
  • Parkinson’s UK
  • University of Bradford
  • Oxford University Press

External expert/ Grant Reviewer (International)

  • External Reviewer for University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (2016-present)
  • External Reviewer for Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale, France (2018-present).
  • Poland National Science Council, Warsaw (2022-present).
  • Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, KSA (2023-present)

Journal Peer Reviewer

ACS, RSC, Wiley and Elsevier journal titles including:

  • Chemical Communications
  • Chemistry A European Journal
  • Advanced Synthesis & Catalysis
  • ChemSusChem
  • Journal of Organic Chemistry
  • ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering

Editorial roles

Molecules MDPI – Organic Chemistry section editor 2019-2022

External PhD examiner

  • University of Nottingham (UK)
  • University of Cardiff (UK)
  • Manchester Metropolitan University (UK)

External UG programme examiner

  • University of Cardiff (Wales, UK) 2022-2026
  • University of Sunderland (England, UK) 2020-2024

Consultancy / Knowledge Transfer roles

  • Novartis
  • Merck Sigma-Aldrich
  • Apollo Scientific

Societies

Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC)

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Asra, R & Jones, AM 2023, 'Green electrosynthesis of drug metabolites', Toxicology Research, pp. 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1093/toxres/tfad009

Povinelli, APR, Zazeri, G, Jones, AM & Cornélio, ML 2022, 'A computational–experimental investigation of the molecular mechanism of interleukin-6-piperine interaction', International Journal of Molecular Sciences, vol. 23, no. 14, 7994. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms23147994

Salim, H & Jones, AM 2022, 'Angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) and manufacturing contamination: a retrospective national register study into suspected associated adverse drug reactions', British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, vol. 2022, no. 11, pp. 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1111/bcp.15411

O’Connor, S, Le Bihan, Y-V, Westwood, IM, Liu, M, Mak, OW, Zazeri, G, Povinelli, APR, Jones, AM, van Montfort, R, Reynisson, J & Collins, I 2022, 'Discovery and characterization of a cryptic secondary binding site in the molecular chaperone HSP70', Molecules, vol. 27, no. 3, 817. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27030817

Jones, L & Jones, AM 2022, 'Suspected adverse drug reactions of the type 2 antidiabetic drug class dipeptidyl-peptidase IV inhibitors (DPP4i): can polypharmacology help explain?', Pharmacology research & perspectives, vol. 10, no. 6, e01029. https://doi.org/10.1002/prp2.1029

Alshehri, J, Gill, D & Jones, AM 2021, 'A sulfuryl group transfer strategy to selectively prepare sulfated steroids and isotopically labelled derivatives', Frontiers in Molecular Bioscience, vol. 8, 776900. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmolb.2021.776900, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmolb.2021.776900

Jones, AM 2021, 'Dialling-in new reactivity into the Shono-type anodic oxidation reaction', The Chemical Record, vol. 21, no. 9, pp. 2120-2129. https://doi.org/10.1002/tcr.202000116

Sandhu, D, Antolin, A, Cox, A & Jones, AM 2021, 'Identification of different side effects between PARP inhibitors and their polypharmacological multi-target rationale', British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. https://doi.org/10.1111/bcp.15015

Kladnik, J, Coverdale, JPC, Kljun, J, Burmeister, H, Lippman, P, Ellis, FG, Jones, AM, Ott, I, Romero-Canelón, I & Turel, I 2021, 'Organoruthenium complexes with benzo-fused pyrithiones overcome platinum resistance in ovarian cancer cells', Cancers, vol. 13, no. 10, 2493. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers13102493

Matharu, K, Chana, K, Ferro, C & Jones, AM 2021, 'Polypharmacology of clinical sodium glucose co-transport protein 2 inhibitors and relationship to suspected adverse drug reactions', Pharmacology Research and Perspectives, vol. 9, no. 5, e00867. https://doi.org/10.1002/prp2.867

Gill, D, Ribeiro Povinelli, A, Zazeri, G, Shamir, SA, Mahmoud, AM, Wilkinson, FL, Alexander, MY, Cornelio, ML & Jones, AM 2021, 'The modulatory role of sulfated and non-sulfated small molecule heparan sulfate-glycomimetics in endothelial dysfunction: Absolute structural clarification, molecular docking and simulated dynamics, SAR analyses and ADMET studies', RSC Medicinal Chemistry, vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 779-790. https://doi.org/10.1039/D0MD00366B

Ribeiro Povinelli, A, Zazeri, G, Jones, AM & Cornelio, ML 2021, 'Unravelling the interaction of piperlongumine with the nucleotide-binding domain of HSP70: a spectroscopic and in silico study', Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland), vol. 14, no. 12, 1298. https://doi.org/10.3390/ph14121298

Entry for encyclopedia/dictionary

Jones, AM 2021, Tributylsulfoammonium betaine. in A Charette, J Bode, T Rovis & R Shenvi (eds), e-EROS: Encyclopedia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis. Electronic Encyclopedia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis, Wiley. https://doi.org/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/047084289X.RN02393, https://doi.org/10.1002/047084289X.rn02393

Preprint

Zhou, Y & Jones, AM 2022 'A Sulfonative rearrangement of N-aryl sulfamates to para-sulfonyl anilines' ChemRxiv. https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv-2022-jc55l

Jones, L & Jones, AM 2022 'Suspected adverse drug reactions of the type 2 antidiabetic drug class dipeptidyl-peptidase IV inhibitors (DPP4i): can polypharmacology help explain?' medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.06.30.22277085

View all publications in research portal