Dr Andrew Lewis
Dr Andrew Lewis MRSC FHEA
Senior Lecturer (Chemical Biology)
A chemical biologist designing molecular tools to answer fundamental biological questions
My profile
Biography
Originally from Swansea in Wales, Dr Andrew Lewis graduated with his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2013 under the supervision of Professor Sir Shankar Balasubramanian. During his PhD he worked on the synthesis and biological understanding of quinone containing natural products and their use as anticancer agents. Prior to this, Andrew read Natural Sciences at St Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge completing his MSc with Professor Steven Ley working on the synthesis of novel hydrogen bond organocatalysts.
From 2013 to 2016 Andrew worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto with Professor Patrick Gunning working on the design and synthesis of protein-protein interaction inhibitors and using chemical biological techniques to understand their mode of action. After moving back to the UK in 2016 Andrew joined the Huber group at the Target Discovery Institute, University of Oxford where his research involved the use of chemical biology and chemoproteomic techniques to identify novel drug targets for multiple myeloma.
In October 2019 Andrew joined Manchester Metropolitan University as a lecturer in chemical biology where his group focuses on developing chemical tools to understand protein-protein interactions
Academic and professional qualifications
2008-2012 PhD - CRUK Graduate Training Programme in Medicinal Chemistry, University of Cambridge
Supervisor: Professor Sir Shankar Balasubramanian
2007-2008 MSci Chemistry, University of Cambridge
Supervisor: Professor Steve Ley
Previous employment
2016-2019 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Target Discovery Institute, University of Oxford
Supervisor: Dr Kilian Huber
2013-2016 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Toronto
Supervisor: Professor Patrick Gunning
Impact
Professional Activities
Elected Member of the EPSRC peer review college (2024-present)
External Examiner MRes in Biomedical Research, University of Brighton (2024-present)
Grant Reviewer for Research Councils and Charities (EPSRC, North West Cancer)
Chair of the Royal Sociey of Chemistry (RSC) Local section Network for Greater Manchester (2021-present)
Teaching
I teach organic chemistry and chemical biology with a focus on demonstrating to chemistry students the importance and impact of chemistry within biological resesarch
Courses
Supervision
Current Lab Members
Anam Khan (PhD 2021)
Charlotte Pearson (MRes 2023)
Isabel Sarah Clegg (MRes 2024)
Marti Hall (Mres 2024)
Lab Alumni
Keziah Cobain (MChem 2023)
Oliver Harrison (MChem 2023)
Lauren Paszczuk (MRes 2023 Joint with Dr Britten)
Sariya Aslam (MRes 2022-2023)
Alexandra Nani (MRes 2022-2023)
Fahmida Begum (MRes 2021-2022)
Elese Stockley (MChem 2022)
Mohamed Aden (MChem 2021)
Jenine Muganyi-Ingleton (MRes 2020-2021)
Nadia Breugelmans (Erasmus 2021)
Research outputs
A summary of publications, patents and Book chapters from the Lewis Lab and MCCB are below:
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Chapters in books
Lewis, A.M., Ball, D.P., Rana, R., Park, J.S., Rosa, D., Lai, P.S., Gómez-Biagi, R.F., Gunning, P.T. (2015) 'Developing Inhibitors of STAT3: Targeting Downstream of the Kinases for Treating Disease.' Kinomics: Approaches and Applications. pp. 281-300.
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Journal articles
Fagan, V., Johansson, C., Gileadi, C., Monteiro, O., Dunford, J.E., Nibhani, R., Philpott, M., Malzahn, J., Wells, G., Farham, R., Cribbs, A., Halidi, N., Li, F., Chau, I., Greschik, H., Velupillai, S., Allali-Hassani, A., Bennett, J.M., Christott, T., Giroud, C., Lewis, A.M., Huber, K.V.M., Athanasou, N., Bountra, C., Jung, M., Schüle, R., Vedadi, M., Arrowsmith, C.H., Xiong, Y., Jin, J., Fedorov, O., Farnie, G., Brennan, P.E., Oppermann, U.C.T. (2019) 'A Chemical Probe for Tudor Domain Protein Spindlin1 to Investigate Chromatin Function..' Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 62(20) pp. 9008-9025.
Scheer, S., Ackloo, S., Medina, T.S., Schapira, M., Li, F., Ward, J.A., Lewis, A.M., Northrop, J.P., Richardson, P.L., Kaniskan, H.Ü., Shen, Y., Liu, J., Smil, D., McLeod, D., Zepeda-Velazquez, C.A., Luo, M., Jin, J., Barsyte-Lovejoy, D., Huber, K.V.M., De Carvalho, D.D., Vedadi, M., Zaph, C., Brown, P.J., Arrowsmith, C.H. (2019) 'A chemical biology toolbox to study protein methyltransferases and epigenetic signaling.' Nature Communications, 10(1)
Stefaniak, J., Lewis, A.M., Conole, D., Galan, S.R.G., Bataille, C.J.R., Wynne, G.M., Castaldi, M.P., Lundbäck, T., Russell, A.J., Huber, K.V.M. (2018) 'Chemical Instability and Promiscuity of Arylmethylidenepyrazolinone-Based MDMX Inhibitors..' ACS Chemical Biology, 13(10) pp. 2849-2854.
Ball, D.P., Lewis, A.M., Williams, D., Resetca, D., Wilson, D.J., Gunning, P.T. (2016) 'Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) inhibitor, S3I-201, acts as a potent and non-selective alkylating agent..' Oncotarget, 7(15) pp. 20669-20679.
da Silva, S.R., Paiva, S.L., Bancerz, M., Geletu, M., Lewis, A.M., Chen, J., Cai, Y., Lukkarila, J.L., Li, H., Gunning, P.T. (2016) 'A selective inhibitor of the UFM1-activating enzyme, UBA5..' Bioorganic & medicinal chemistry letters, 26(18) pp. 4542-4547.
Haftchenary, S., Jouk, A.O., Aubry, I., Lewis, A.M., Landry, M., Ball, D.P., Shouksmith, A.E., Collins, C.V., Tremblay, M.L., Gunning, P.T. (2015) 'Identification of Bidentate Salicylic Acid Inhibitors of PTP1B..' ACS medicinal chemistry letters, 6(9) pp. 982-986.
Singh, M., Garg, N., Venugopal, C., Hallett, R., Tokar, T., McFarlane, N., Mahendram, S., Bakhshinyan, D., Manoranjan, B., Vora, P., Qazi, M., Arpin, C.C., Page, B., Haftchenary, S., Rosa, D.A., Lai, P.S., Gómez-Biagi, R.F., Ali, A.M., Lewis, A., Geletu, M., Murty, N.K., Hassell, J.A., Jurisica, I., Gunning, P.T., Singh, S.K. (2015) 'STAT3 pathway regulates lung-derived brain metastasis initiating cell capacity through miR-21 activation..' Oncotarget, 6(29) pp. 27461-27477.
Cumaraswamy, A.A., Lewis, A.M., Geletu, M., Todic, A., Diaz, D.B., Cheng, X.R., Brown, C.E., Laister, R.C., Muench, D., Kerman, K., Grimes, H.L., Minden, M.D., Gunning, P.T. (2014) 'Nanomolar-Potency Small Molecule Inhibitor of STAT5 Protein..' ACS medicinal chemistry letters, 5(11) pp. 1202-1206.
Page, B.D.G., Croucher, D.C., Li, Z.H., Haftchenary, S., Jimenez-Zepeda, V.H., Atkinson, J., Spagnuolo, P.A., Wong, Y.L., Colaguori, R., Lewis, A.M., Schimmer, A.D., Trudel, S., Gunning, P.T. (2013) 'Inhibiting aberrant signal transducer and activator of transcription protein activation with tetrapodal, small molecule Src homology 2 domain binders: promising agents against multiple myeloma..' Journal of medicinal chemistry, 56(18) pp. 7190-7200.