Dr Andrew Frawley

MChem (Durham, 2014); PhD (Durham, 2017) 

I studied for my MChem degree at Durham University (2010-2014), and carried out a research project with Professor David Parker FRS. I remained in David’s group for my PhD (2014-2017) studying chiral luminescent lanthanide complexes for use in security labelling and biological imaging.

In 2018, I moved to Oxford as a Wellcome Trust-funded postdoc in the group of Professor Harry Anderson FRS. I continue to be hosted in Harry’s group during my Junior Research Fellowship.

In the past I have taught undergraduate workshops on spectroscopy and stereochemistry, as well as general organic chemistry and supervision in teaching laboratories.

My research focuses on the development of new chemical tools for the study of biological systems. In particular, I am making novel fluorescent dyes for use in super resolution microscopy. These techniques allow unprecedented spatial resolution in fluorescence microscopy, but most currently require long imaging times or high laser powers which are not ideal for imaging live samples. I am developing small molecule dyes for a technique known as RESOLFT, which should allow spatial enhancement with significantly lower laser powers. The project involves the synthesis of organic dyes, then investigation of their photophysical and photochemical properties, followed by testing their behaviour in super resolution microscopy.

1. Super-resolution RESOLFT microscopy of lipid bilayers using a fluorophore-switch dyad, A. T. Frawley, V. Wycisk, Y. Xiong, S. Galiani, E. Sezgin, I. Urbančič, A. Vargas Jentszch, K. G. Leslie, C. Eggeling and H. L. Anderson, Chem. Sci., 2020, 11, 8955-8960, DOI: 10.1039/d0sc02447c.

2. A cyanine rotaxane porphyrin nanoring complex as a model light harvesting system, J. Pruchyathamkorn, W. J. Kendrick, A. T. Frawley, A. Mattioni, F. Caycedo-Soler, S. F. Huelga, M. B. Plenio and H. L. Anderson, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2020, 59, DOI: 10.1002/anie.202006644.

3. Enantioselective cellular localisation of europium(III) coordination complexes, A. T. Frawley, H. V. Linford, M. Starck, R. Pal and D. Parker, Chem. Sci., 2018, 9, 1042-1049, DOI: 10.1039/c7sc04422d.

4. Rationalisation of anomalous pseudo-contact shifts and their solvent dependence in a series of C3-symmetric lanthanide complexes, M. Vonci, K. Mason, E. A. Suturina, A. T. Frawley, S. G. Worswick, I. Kuprov, D. Parker, E. J. L. McInnes and N. F. Chilton, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2017, 139, 14166-14172, DOI: 10.1021/jacs.7b07094.

5. Very bright, enantiopure europium(III) complexes allow time-gated chiral contrast imaging, A. T. Frawley, R. Pal and D. Parker, Chem. Commun., 2016, 52, 13349-13352; DOI: 10.1039/c6cc07313a. 

6. Utility of tris(4-bromopyridyl) europium complexes as versatile intermediates in the divergent synthesis of emissive chiral probes, S. J. Butler, M. Delbianco, N. H. Evans, A. T. Frawley, R. Pal, D. Parker, R. S. Puckrin, D. S. Yufit, Dalton Trans., 2014, 43, 5721-5730; DOI: 10.1039/c4dt00253a.

I enjoy choral singing and scouting.