David Haddleton

David Mark Haddleton (born 1962) is a professor in the department of chemistry at The University of Warwick. Haddleton’s work focuses on controlled polymer synthesis and the industrial applications of polymer materials. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Biography Haddleton was born in Longbridge, Birmingham, England, in 1962 and educated at King Edward VI Camp Hill School for boys in Kings Heath, Birmingham. He studied Chemistry to BSc at the University of York and was awarded a Second Class Division 1 degree (2i) in 1983. Haddleton received his D.Phil. from the University of York in 1986, working under the supervision of Professor Robin Perutz. His thesis focused on the photochemistry of metal ethene complexes for the purposes of methane activation using a combination of matrix isolation, flash photolysis and solution photochemistry. Haddleton was an ICI funded postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Toronto in 1987 involved in metal vapour synthesis and zeolite encapsulation with Professor Geoff Ozin. He then joined the company ICI and spent one year at the University of Southern Mississippi, US with Professor Anselm Griffin prior to 5 years as a scientist in the ICI corporate polymer group in Runcorn, England. He then joined the University of Warwick as a lecturer in Polymer synthesis and catalysis in 1993 being promoted to professor in 1998. Haddleton has worked in the area of polymer synthesis graduating over 90 PhD students and publishing over 400 articles and is named inventor on over 15 patents. He featured as a Thomson Reuters ISI Highly Cited author in 2018.

Haddleton was editor in chief of the European Polymer Journal from 2002 – 2009 prior to becoming the founding editor and editor in chief of the Royal Society of Chemistry Polymer Chemistry from 2009 – 2017. He sat on the Royal Society of Chemistry publishing board between 2017 and 2023. He is the Executive Editor in Chief of Cambridge Materials journals published by Cambridge University Press (CUP). His research has been closely aligned with a number of companies, including Unilever, Lubrizol and Syngenta. He has founded two companies Warwick Effect Polymers Ltd (now part of Abzena) a drug-polymer conjugation company and Medherant Ltd which develops transdermal drug delivery patches for delivery of testosterone for women where he is a Director and CSO. He has been an adjunct professor at Monash University in both the Departments of Materials Engineering and Pharmacy since 2013 and has been a Chair Professor at Soochow University in Suzhou, China.

Appointments

1987 — PDRA, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada (G A Ozin) 1988–1993 — ICI/Zeneca Senior Research Scientist 1988 — University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, US (A C Griffin) 1993–1996 — Lecturer, University of Warwick, Coventry, England 1996–1998 — Senior Lecturer, University of Warwick, Coventry, England 1998–present — Professor of Chemistry, University of Warwick, Coventry, England 2001–2011 — CEO/CTO and Founder, Warwick Effect Polymers Ltd 2013–present — Adjunct Professor, Monash University (Pharmacy and Materials Engineering) 2014–present — Founder of Medherant Ltd, Executive Director and CSO 2014–2017 — Chair Professor Soochow University, Suzhou, China

Selected publications

Ladmiral, V.; Mantovani, G.; Clarkson, G. J.; Cauet, S.; Irwin, J. L.; Haddleton, D. M., Synthesis of neoglycopolymers by a combination of "click chemistry" and living radical polymerization. Journal of the American Chemical Society 2006, 128 (14), 4823-4830. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja058364k Mantovani, G.; Lecolley, F.; Tao, L.; Haddleton, D. M.; Clerx, J.; Cornelissen, J.; Velonia, K., Design and synthesis of N-maleimido-functionalized hydrophilic polymers via copper-mediated living radical polymerization: A suitable alternative to PEGylation chemistry. Journal of the American Chemical Society 2005, 127 (9), 2966-2973. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja0430999 Ryan, S. M.; Mantovani, G.; Wang, X. X.; Haddleton, D. M.; Brayden, D. J., Advances in PEGylation of important biotech molecules: delivery aspects. Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery 2008, 5 (4), 371-383. https://doi.org/10.1517/17425247.5.4.371 Tao, L.; Mantovani, G.; Lecolley, F.; Haddleton, D. M., α-Aldehyde terminally functional methacrylic polymers from living radical polymerization: Application in protein conjugation "pegylation". Journal of the American Chemical Society 2004, 126 (41), 13220-13221. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja0456454 Zhang, Q.; Wilson, P.; Li, Z. D.; McHale, R.; Godfrey, J.; Anastasaki, A.; Waldron, C.; Haddleton, D. M., Aqueous Copper-Mediated Living Polymerization: Exploiting Rapid Disproportionation of CuBr with Me6TREN. Journal of the American Chemical Society 2013, 135 (19), 7355-7363. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja4026402 Haddleton, D. M.; Jasieczek, C. B.; Hannon, M. J.; Shooter, A. J., Atom transfer radical polymerization of methyl methacrylate initiated by alkyl bromide and 2-pyridinecarbaldehyde imine copper(I) complexes. Macromolecules 1997, 30 (7), 2190-2193. https://doi.org/10.1021/ma961074r Anastasaki, A.; Nikolaou, V.; Nurumbetov, G.; Wilson, P.; Kempe, K.; Quinn, J. F.; Davis, T. P.; Whittaker, M. R.; Haddleton, D. M., Cu(0)-Mediated Living Radical Polymerization: A Versatile Tool for Materials Synthesis. Chemical Reviews 2016, 116 (3), 835-877. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemrev.5b00191 Engelis, N. G.; Anastasaki, A.; Nurumbetov, G.; Truong, N. P.; Nikolaou, V.; Shegiwal, A.; Whittaker, M. R.; Davis, T. P.; Haddleton, D. M., Sequence-controlled methacrylic multiblock copolymers via sulfur-free RAFT emulsion polymerization. Nature Chemistry 2017, 9 (2), 171-178. https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2634