Glycomix Glycoscience Products

Dr Chris Lawson
Managing Director, Glycomix Ltd.

Chris has many years of high-level experience delivering and managing chemistry and life science research projects. As a joint founder of Dextra Laboratories, he helped develop the start-up into a highly successful glycobiology company with a catalogue of key research carbohydrates and a specialist custom synthesis business focused on sugar chemistry. Dextra was sold to New Zealand Pharmaceuticals in 2007.

Working in industry, Chris was a senior research manager at Tate & Lyle Research where he helped to bring a number of important products to market including xanthan gum and sucralose.

His expertise is based on many years of important academic research. During his PhD at the University of Edinburgh, Chris studied the chemistry and enzymology of polysaccharides. As a member of the research team led by Prof. Sir Dai Rees, he helped to demonstrate how polysaccharides form networks and highly organised structures in living tissues – a breakthrough in glycoscience which had enormous significance in the food and life science industries.

Chris is a member of many prestigious organisations and is the author of over 40 publications including research papers, patents and book chapters. He is a member of The American Chemical Society, the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Chris is a director of Acumentia Members Ltd, a group of consultants working in the food and life science sectors. Glycomix draws on the complementary expertise of these experts to provide clients with all the necessary skills and knowledge to deliver strong, successful projects.

Publications

  1. Carrageenans Part VI.  Reinvestigation of the Acetolysis Products of Carrageenan, Revision of the structure of a -1-3-Galactotriose and a Further Example of the Reverse Specificities of Glycoside Hydrolysis and Acetolysis.  Lawson, C.J.,  Rees, D.A., J. Chem. Soc (1968) 1301

  2. Carrageenans Part V.  The Masked Repeating Structures of l and u-Carrageenans.  Anderson, N.S.,  Dolan, T.C.S.,  Lawson, C.J.,and Rees,D.A.,  Carbohydrate Research (1968) 1 368-473.

  3. Ph.D. Thesis, Edinburgh University, 1969. 'The Chemistry and Enzymology of some Acidic Polysaccharides'.

  4. Structural Analysis of Colanic Acid from E Coli by using Methylation and Base-Catalysed Fragmentation.  Comparison with Polysaccharides from other Bacterial Sources.  Lawson,C.J., McLeary, C.W., Nakada, H.I., Rees, D.A., Sutherland, I.W., Wilkinson, J.F., Biochem. J. (1969) 115 947-958.

  5. An Enzyme for the Metabolic Control of Polysaccharide Conformation and Function.  Lawson, C.J., Rees, D.A., Nature (London) (1970) 227

  6. The Production of an Extracellular Polysaccharide by a Pseudomonas Type Microorganism.  Williams, A.G., Wimpenny, J.W.T., Lawson, C.J., J.Gen.Microbiol. 77 (2) 1973.

  7. Carrageenans VIII.  Repeating Structures of Galactan Sulphates from Furcellaria, Gigartina, Ahnfeltia, Gymnogongrus, Eucheuma.  Lawson, C.J., Rees, D.A., Stancioff, D.J., Stanley, N.F.,  J. Chem. Soc. Perkin Trans. 1, (1973) 19, 2177-82.

  8. Fluoride Gels.  Lawson.C.J., Prodger, T.E., UK Patent 1450881

  9. The Production of Industrially Important Bacterial Polysaccharides.  Bucke, C., Lawson, C.J., Pindar, D.F.,  Biochem. Soc. Trans. (1975), 3 844-7.

  10. Microbial Polysaccharides.  (Research at the Philip Lyle Memorial Research Laboratory).  Lawson, C.J.,  Chem. Ind. (London) (1976) 6, 258-61.

  11. Purification and Properties of an Alginate Lyase from a Marine Bacterium.  Davidson, I.W., Sutherland, I.W., Lawson, C.J.,  Biochem. J. (1976) Production of a Microbial Polysaccharide 'Indican', Lawson, C.J., Symes, K.C., British Patent (1979)

  12. Oligosaccharides Produced by the Partial Acetolysis of Xanthan Gum.  Lawson, C.J., Symes, K.C.,  Carbohydrate Research. (1977) 433-8, 58.

  13. The Production of Alginic Acid by Azotobacter vinelandii in Batch and Continuous Culture.  Deavin, L., Jarman, T.J., Lawson, C.J., Righelato, R.C., Slocombe, S.,  ACS Symp. Ser.  (1977) No 45, pp 14-26.

  14. Xanthan Gum Acetolysis as a Tool for the Elucidation of Structure.  Lawson,C.J., Symes, K.C.,  ACS Symp. Ser. (1977) No 45, 183-91.

  15. Localisation of O-Acetyl Groups of Bacterial Alginate.  Davidson, I.W., Sutherland, I.W., Lawson, C.J.,  J, Gen. Microbiol  (1977) 98 603-6.

  16. An Alginate Lyase from Azotobacter vinelandii Phage.  Davidson, I.W., Sutherland,I.W., Lawson, C.J.,  J. Gen. Microbiol.  (1977) 98, 223-9.

  17. Production of Industrially Important Gums with Particular Reference to Xanthan Gum and Microbial Alginate.  Lawson. C.J.,  ACS Symp. Ser.  (1977) No 41, 282-96.

  18. 'Polysaccharides', in Economic Microbiology Vol. II  (1978) Academic Press, Lawson, C.J., Sutherland, I.W.,  Ed., A.H.Rose.

  19. Production of a Microbial Polysaccharide 'Indican', Lawson, C.J., Symes, K.C., British Patent (1979)

  20. Preliminary Studies on the Composition and Properties of the Extracellular Polysaccharide Synthesised by Pseudomonas PB1 (NCIB 11246). Williams, A.G., Wimpenny, J.W.T., and Lawson, C.J., Biochem et Biophys Acta. 585 (1979) 611-619.

  21. Influence of the Pyruvate Content of Xanthan on Macromolecular Association in Solution.  Smith, I.H., Symes, K.C., Lawson, C.J., and Morris, E.R..  Int. J. Biol. Macromol. (1981) 128-134.

  22. The Effect of Pyruvate on Xanthan Solution Properties.  I.H.Smith., K.C.Symes., C.J.Lawson and E.R.Morris.  Carbohydrate Polymers 4, (1984), 154-157.

  23. Scope and Limitation of the Simple 13C-N.M.R. Method of Structural Analysis of Carbohydrate Gluco-Oligosaccharides.  Hoffman, R.E., Christofides, J.E., Davies, D.B., Lawson, C.J.,  Carbohydrate Research. (1986) 153 1-16.

  24. Polyols of the fungus, Zoophagus insidians.  Abro H., Crowther A. M., Lawson C. J.,  & Dick M. W. Biochemical Systematics & Ecology, 17, (1989), 439-441.

  25. Polymorphism within the human anti-pig repertoire. Lee J., Cairns T., Weymouth-Wilson A., Simpson P., Lawson C.J., Hacking A.J., Nilsson R., Hakim N., Taube D., Transplant Proc (1996) 28 549.

  26. Patent application PCT/EP2002/10946 - Solvent Extraction Process for alkaloid glycosides extracted from the fruits of Solanum sodomaem (30.09.2002).

  27. C J Lawson, A C Weymouth-Wilson, Steroid Modified Solatrioses, United States Patent Application 2007/0135358, June 14th 2007.

  28. C J Lawson, A C Weymouth-Wilson, Steroid Modified Chacotrioses and Solatrioses, United States Patent Application, 2007/0066814, March 22nd 2007.

  29. Ali Saber Abdelhameed, Shirley Ang, Gordon A. Morris, Ian Smith, Chris Lawson, Roland Gahler, Simon Wood and Stephen E. Harding, An Analytical Ultracentrifuge Study on Ternary Mixtures of Konjac Glucomannan supplemented with Sodium Alginate and Xanthan Gum, Carbohydrate Polymers, 81, (2010), 145-148.

  30. Stephen E. Harding, Ian H. Smith, Christopher J Lawson, Roland Gahler, & Simon Wood, Studies on Macromolecular Interactions in Ternary Mixtures of Konjac Glucomannan, Xanthan Gum and Sodium Alginate, Carbohydrate Polymers, 83(2), (2011), 317-328.
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