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

Telephone
+44 (0)121 414 7288
Email
a.m.jones.2@bham.ac.uk
Twitter
@dralanjones
View my research portal
Address
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, within the School of Health 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 Department, College and University roles to enhance good governance within the University:
  • Chairman of the School of Health Sciences Health and Safety Committee
  • College Chemical Safety Officer
  • CMH Health and Safety Management Committee (HSMC) member
  • CMH 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

https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/pharmacovigilance-and-polypharmacology-identification-of-differential-side-effects-within-drug-classes-and-links-to-their-unique-modes-of-action/?p171337

https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/drug-metabolism-prediction-detection-and-isolation/?p171338

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

Zhou, Y & Jones, AM 2024, 'A general method to access underexplored ylideneamino sulfates as interrupted Beckmann-type rearrangement intermediates', Molecules, vol. 29, no. 7, 1667. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules29071667

Xie, J, Male, L & Jones, AM 2024, 'A modified all-in-one DMSO-activating and base releasing reagent for the Parikh-Doering-type benzylic oxidation reaction', Results in Chemistry. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rechem.2024.101650

Yousaf, H & Jones, AM 2024, 'Associations between Suspected Adverse Drug Reactions of HMG-CoA Reductase Inhibitors and Polypharmacology Using a National Registry Approach', Pharmacoepidemiology, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 241-251. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharma3030016

Ugurlu, SY, McDonald, D, Lei, H, Jones, AM, Li, S, Tong, HY, Butler, MS & He, S 2024, 'Cobdock: an accurate and practical machine learning-based consensus blind docking method', Journal of Cheminformatics, vol. 16, no. 1, 5. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13321-023-00793-x

Asra, R, Ribeiro Povinelli, APR, Zazeri, G & Jones, AM 2024, 'Computational Predictive and Electrochemical Detection of Metabolites (CP-EDM) of Piperine', Molecules, vol. 29, no. 10, 2406. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules29102406

Ramos, DLO, Crapnell, RD, Asra, R, Bernalte, E, Oliveira, A, Muñoz, RAA, Richter, EM, Jones, AM & Banks, CE 2024, 'Conductive Polypropylene Additive Manufacturing Feedstock: Application to Aqueous Electroanalysis and Unlocking Nonaqueous Electrochemistry and Electrosynthesis', ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.4c12967

Ramos, D, Crapnell, R, Asra, R, Bernalte, E, Oliveria, A, Munoz, R, Richter, E, Jones, AM & Banks, CE 2024, 'Conductive polypropylene additive manufacturing feedstock: Application to aqueous electroanalysis and unlocking non-aqueous electrochemistry and electrosynthesis', ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Asra, R & Jones, AM 2024, 'Electrochemical Synthesis of Purine Alkaloid Metabolites from Caffeine', ChemElectroChem. https://doi.org/10.1002/celc.202400439

Asra, R, Malmakova, AE & Jones, AM 2024, 'Electrochemical Synthesis of the In Human S-oxide Metabolites of Phenothiazine-Containing Antipsychotic Medications', Molecules, vol. 29, no. 13, 3038. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules29133038

Comment/debate

Alshehri, J, Gill, D & Jones, AM 2024, 'Corrigendum: A Sulfuryl Group Transfer Strategy to Selectively Prepare Sulfated Steroids and Isotopically Labelled Derivatives', Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences, vol. 11.

Preprint

Xie, J, Male, L & Jones, AM 2024 'A modified all-in-one DMSO-activating and base releasing reagent for the Parikh-Doering-type benzylic oxidation reaction' ChemRxiv. https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv-2024-sscbn

Alshehri, J & Jones, A 2024 'Approaches to the Sulfation of Small Molecules: Current Progress and Future Directions' ChemRxiv. https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv-2024-26pv5

Asra, R, Povinelli, APR, Zazeri, G & Jones, AM 2024 'Computational Predictive and Electrochemical Detection of Metabolites (CP-EDM) of Piperine' ChemRxiv. https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv-2024-4lt9w

Review article

Alshehri, J & Jones, AM 2024, 'Chemical Approaches to the Sulfation of Small Molecules: Current Progress and Future Directions', Essays in Biochemistry. https://doi.org/10.1042/EBC20240001

Working paper

Asra, R & Jones, AM 2024 'Electrochemical Synthesis of Added Valuable Purine Alkaloid Metabolites from Caffeine Feedstock Employing a Structure Electro-Activity Relationship (SeAR) Approach' ChemRxiv. https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv-2024-qv0gd

View all publications in research portal