Leroy Cronin | |
Birth Date: | 1 June 1973 |
Nationality: | British |
Fields: | Chemistry, Digital Chemistry, Assembly Theory, Nanoscience, Self Assembly, Systems chemistry, Complex Chemical Systems, Inorganic Biology, Supramolecular chemistry, Self-organization, 3D printing |
Workplaces: | University of Glasgow University of Birmingham Research Institute for Electronic Science, University of Hokkaido University of Bielefeld University of Edinburgh |
Alma Mater: | University of York |
Doctoral Advisor: | Paul. H. Walton |
Known For: | Chemistry |
Awards: | FRSE FRSC Philip Leverhulme Prize Corday–Morgan Prize; RSE BP Hutton Prize; Tilden Prize; Interdisciplinary Prize |
Leroy "Lee" Cronin FRSE FRSC (born 1 June 1973)[1] is the Regius Chair of Chemistry in the School of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow.[2] [3] [4] He was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and appointed to the Regius Chair of Chemistry in 2013. He was previously the Gardiner Chair, appointed April 2009. His feature Profile in RSC Chemistry World “Searching for Complexity” explains his vision for the future of digital chemistry.
Cronin was awarded BSc (1994) and PhD (1997) from the University of York. From 1997 to 1999, he was a Leverhulme fellow at the University of Edinburgh working with Neil Robertson. From 1999-2000 he worked as an Alexander von Humboldt research fellow in the laboratory of Achim Mueller at the University of Bielefeld (1999–2000). In 2000, he joined the University of Birmingham as a Lecturer in Chemistry, and in 2002 he moved to a similar position at the University of Glasgow.
In 2005, he was promoted to Reader at the University of Glasgow, EPSRC Advanced Fellow followed by promotion to Professor of Chemistry in 2006, and in 2009 became the Gardiner Professor. In 2013, he became the Regius Professor of Chemistry (Glasgow).
Cronin gave the opening lecture at TEDGlobal conference in 2011 in Edinburgh.[5] He outlined the initial steps his team at University of Glasgow is taking to create inorganic biology, life composed of non-carbon-based material.
In 2022 Cronin was suspended by the Royal Society of Chemistry for three months for breaching their code of conduct, following a full independent investigation of a complaint made by a third party.[6] [7]
Cronin was the subject of a film entitled Inorganica, which documents the progress of his research in inorganic biology and origins of life.[15]
In 2012 Cronin was described to be designing[16] robots using 3D printed-architectures[17] to discover and design new chemicals] and also apply this to important drugs[18] By making a modular system he was able to build a programming language for chemistry.[19] This was extended to ensure the chemputer was universal[20] and this was demonstrated by reading the chemistry synthesis literature and converting it into executable chemical code.[21] The emergence of the ontology for digital chemistry required the design of modular hardware, the development of chempilation - the ability to compile chemical code 'XDL code' to any compatible hardware. While this is well established concept in computer science, Cronin and his team were the first to apply this to chemical robotics.[22] [23]