Cookies

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. You can change your cookie settings at any time. Otherwise, we'll assume you're OK to continue.

Department of Chemistry

Prof. David Parker, FRS


Researcher ID profile
Professor in the Department of Chemistry
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 33 42033

(email at david.parker@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/cs/index.asp

David Parker is a native of the North-East of England and graduated with a First in Chemistry from Oxford University in 1978. He completed a D.Phil. with John M Brown in 1980 on mechanistic studies in asymmetric catalysis. Following a NATO post-doctoral fellowship with Jean-Marie Lehn in Strasbourg, he returned to Durham to take up a Lectureship in Chemistry in January 1982 and was promoted to a Chair in Chemistry in 1992. He received the RSC Hickinbottom Fellowship for 1988/9, the Corday-Morgan Medal and Prize in 1989, the ICI Prize in Organic Chemistry in 1991, the RSC Interdisciplinary Award in 1996, a Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship (1998/9), the inaugural IBC Award for Supramolecular Science and Technology in 2000, the first RSC award for Supramolecular  Chemistry in 2002, a Tilden Lectureship and Silver Medal in 2003 and the Ludwig Mond Lectureship in 2011.  In 2012, he was awarded the triennial Lecoq de Boisbaudran Prize in rare earth science.   In 2002, aged 45, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. He served twice as the Chairman of the Chemistry Department and holds an ERC Advanced Investigator Grant (2011-16).

Research Interests

The chemistry of complex chiral systems is studied using multidisciplinary techniques to address challenging aspects of complexation phenomena in aqueous media.  It is concerned with:

  • new aspects of complexation chemistry, developing metal complexes or conjugates that may bind reversibly or react selectively with biomolecules, and their behaviour from in vitro studies, via in cellulo examinations to in vivo applications;
  • the development of responsive, luminescent lanthanide complexes in which the metal-based emission is a function of the local ionic or chiral environment; this work embraces the synthesis of imaging probes for bioactive ions and the development of chiral probes for circularly polarised luminescence (CPL) spectroscopy and microscopy;
  • the synthesis and characterisation of functional magnetic resonance probes, developing responsive and targeted paramagnetic contrast agents (e.g. to tumours for cancer imaging) for Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy (MRI/MRS).

We enjoy fruitful collaborations with academic and industrial research groups in Italy (Turin , Pisa and Alessandria), France (CISBio Bioassays), Germany (Tubingen and Munster) and the USA (Baltimore) as well as several leading labs in the UK. We also participate in ESF COST Chemistry Actions. Within the group, pulsed NMR, luminescence spectroscopy and microscopy, electrospray mass spectrometry, LC and pH-metric methods of analysis are used to define the nature of solution complexation phenomena.

Responsive Lanthanide Complexes and Sensors

Several single component, macrocyclic complexes of the lanthanide ions have been devised in which the delayed emission from the metal ion within a defined compartment (e.g. a cell organelle) is a sensitive function of pH, dissolved oxygen and the concentration of certain anions - including phosphorus(V) oxy-anions, bicarbonate, lactate citrate and urate1-4. The factors determining the cellular localisation profile of well-defined series of metal complexes are being studied, including an understanding of the mechanism of cell uptake and trafficking 5. Gadolinium complexes and conjugates are also being prepared, including systems in which their effectiveness as contrast agents in MR is a sensitive function of the local environment 6. In collaboration with colleagues in Newcastle, Munster and Mainz, paramagnetic probes for imaging and spectroscopy are being developed for proton and fluorine magnetic resonance7 and 68Ga and 18F positron emission tomography (PET).

References

  1. C. P. Montgomery, E. J. New, D. Parker and R. D. Peacock, Chem. Commun. 2008, 4261; G-L Law, C. Man, D. Parker and J. W. Walton, Chem. Commun. 2010, 2391; J. W. Walton, L. Di Bari, G. Pescitelli, D. Parker, H. Puschmann, D. Yufit, Chem. Commun. 2011, 47, 12289
  2. C. P. Montgomery, B. S. Murray, E. J. New, R. Pal and D. Parker, Acc. Chem. Res. 2009, 42, 925; E. J. New, D. G. Smith, D. Parker and J. W. Walton, Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol. 2010, 14, 238.
  3. R. Pal, L. C. Costello and D. Parker, Org. Biomol. Chem. 2009, 7, 1525; R. Pal, A. Beeby and D. Parker JPBA, 2011, 56, 352.
  4. D. G. Smith, G-L. Law, R. Pal, D. Parker, K.L. Wong, Chem. Commun. 2011, 47, 7347; D. G. Smith, B. K. McMahon, R. Pal, D. Parker, Chem. Commun. 2012, 48, 8520.
  5. E. J.New, A Congreve and D. Parker, Chem. Sci. 2010, 1, 111. 
  6. A. Mishra, D. Parker, N. Logothetis, Chem. Eur.J. 2011, 17, 1529. 
  7. K. H. Chalmers, E. De Luca, I. Kuprov, A. M. Kenwright, D. Parker, A.M. Blamire, M. Botta, N. L. M. Hogg, J. I. Wilson, Chem. Eur. J. 2010, 16, 134; K. H. Chalmers, M. Botta, D. Parker, Dalton Trans. 2011, 40, 409; P. Harvey, A. Mishra, K. H. Chalmers, E. De Luca, D. Parker, Chem. Eur. J. 2012, 18, 8748.  
  8. A. Mishra, D. Parker, J. Engelmann and S. Gottschalk, Chem. Sci.  2012, 3, 131-135.  

Links

The Parker group WWW pages