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Professor Mike Watkinson

Deputy Faculty Pro-Vice-Chancellor

My profile

Biography

Professor Mike Watkinson was appointed Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Science and Engineering in February 2024.

Prior to this, Mike was the Head of the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences at Keele University since 2018 having previously worked at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) for nearly twenty years. There he established his independent research in the design and synthesis of supramolecular architectures for a range of applications in catalysis and sensing.

Mike started at QMUL as a Lecturer in Inorganic Chemistry and held a number of senior roles as Professor of Synthetic Chemistry in 2010, the Deputy Dean for Research for the Faculty of Science and Engineering 2012-18, and Director of the Doctoral College 2016-18.

Earlier in his career, having completed his first degree in Chemistry at the University of St. Andrews, Mike, moved to UMIST to undertake a PhD on the development of manganese Schiff base complexes as biomimetic models. For this, he was awarded the inaugural Laurie Vergnano Award by the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1994.

Mike then moved to the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain funded by a Royal Society Postdoctoral Exchange Fellowship returning to UMIST to work on the development of routes to conformationally restricted biaryl systems and was also appointed to an honorary lectureship.

He has also published nearly 110 peer reviewed papers, patents and book chapters on his research whilst securing funding of over £7M from a range of sources.

Mike is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Chemistry FRSC, CChem.

To get in touch with Professor Mike Watkinson, please email PAtotheDFPVCofSciEng@mmu.ac.uk

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John Dalton East

Research outputs

  • Journal articles

    Paul, S., Barman, P., Dey, N., Watkinson, M. (2024) 'Recent developments in pyrene-based fluorescence recognition and imaging of Ag+ and Pb2+ ions: Synthesis, applications and challenges.' Sensors and Diagnostics,

    Chernobryva, M., Motevallia, M., Hawesb, C.S., Watkinson, M. (2022) 'An investigation into the coordination chemistry of tripodal “click” triazole ligands with Mn, Ni, Co and Zn ions.' Journal of Molecular Structure, 1259

    Fang, L., Crespo-Otero, R., Jones, C.R., Watkinson, M. (2021) 'Protect to detect: a Golgi apparatus targeted probe to image mobile zinc through the use of a lipophilic cell-labile protecting group strategy.' Sensors and Actuators, B: Chemical, 338

    Fang, L., Watkinson, M. (2020) 'Subcellular localised small molecule fluorescent probes to image mobile Zn2..' Chemical science, 11(42) pp. 11366-11379.

    Yuan, D., Cai, N., Xu, J., Miao, D., Zhang, S., Woodfine, S.E., Plana, D., Hawes, C.S., Watkinson, M. (2020) 'A Series of Manganese(III) Salen Complexes as a Result of Team-Based Inquiry in a Transnational Education Programme.' ChemPlusChem, 85(6) pp. 1210-1219.

    Singh, M., Watkinson, M., Scanlan, E.M., Miller, G.J. (2020) 'Illuminating glycoscience: synthetic strategies for FRET-enabled carbohydrate active enzyme probes.' RSC Chemical Biology, 1(5) pp. 352-368.

    Fang, L., Trigiante, G., Crespo-Otero, R., Hawes, C.S., Philpott, M.P., Jones, C.R., Watkinson, M. (2019) 'Endoplasmic reticulum targeting fluorescent probes to image mobile Zn2..' Chemical science, 10(47) pp. 10881-10887.

    Fang, L., Trigiante, G., Crespo-Otero, R., Philpott, M.P., Jones, C.R., Watkinson, M. (2019) 'An alternative modular 'click-SNAr-click' approach to develop subcellular localised fluorescent probes to image mobile Zn2+ ..' Organic & biomolecular chemistry, 17(47) pp. 10013-10019.

    Wu, F., Zhou, B., Wang, J., Zhong, M., Das, A., Watkinson, M., Hing, K., Zhang, D.W., Krause, S. (2019) 'Photoelectrochemical Imaging System for the Mapping of Cell Surface Charges..' Analytical chemistry, 91(9) pp. 5896-5903.

    Ahmad, N., Colak, B., Zhang, D.W., Gibbs, M.J., Watkinson, M., Becer, C.R., Gautrot, J.E., Krause, S. (2019) 'Peptide Cross-Linked Poly (Ethylene Glycol) Hydrogel Films as Biosensor Coatings for the Detection of Collagenase..' Sensors (Basel, Switzerland), 19(7)

    Nodzewska, A., Wadolowska, A., Watkinson, M. (2019) 'Recent advances in the catalytic oxidation of alkene and alkane substrates using immobilized manganese complexes with nitrogen containing ligands.' Coordination Chemistry Reviews, 382pp. 181-216.

    Fang, L., Trigiante, G., Kousseff, C.J., Crespo-Otero, R., Philpott, M.P., Watkinson, M. (2018) 'Biotin-tagged fluorescent sensor to visualize 'mobile' Zn2+ in cancer cells..' Chemical communications (Cambridge, England), 54(69) pp. 9619-9622.

    Nodzewska, A., Watkinson, M. (2018) 'Remarkable increase in the rate of the catalytic epoxidation of electron deficient styrenes through the addition of Sc(OTf)3 to the MnTMTACN catalyst..' Chemical communications (Cambridge, England), 54(12) pp. 1461-1464.

  • Conference papers

    Ahmad, N., Colak, B., Gibbs, M.J., Zhang, D.W., Becer, C.R., Watkinson, M., Gautrot, J.E., Krause, S. (2018) 'Collagenase Biosensor Based on the Degradation of Peptide Cross-Linked Poly(Ethylene Glycol) Hydrogel Films.' In Eurosensors. MDPI,