Rate My Professor Lyall Hanton

Emeritus Professor Lyall Hanton is affiliated with the Department of Chemistry at the University of Otago, where he held the Mellor Chair from 2013 until his retirement in 2025 after 44 years of service. He obtained his BSc from the University of Otago and PhD from the University of Cambridge. Hanton served as Head of the Department of Chemistry for eight years and as laboratory manager from 2016, where he focused on improving laboratory compliance and safety standards. His research specializations encompass materials chemistry, with a primary focus on the synthesis and structural control of metallosupramolecular architectures. This involves a building block approach leveraging transition metal coordination chemistry, such as Ag(I), Cu(I), and Cu(II), and flexible thio-substituted oligopyridines as linkers to form networks sustained by covalent bonds, hydrogen bonds, π–π interactions, or semi-coordinate bonds. These structures target functional materials exhibiting photophysical, electronic, magnetic, or catalytic properties, including flexible metal-organic frameworks for gas storage using earth-abundant metals and polymer hydrogels that respond to stimuli.

Hanton co-invented Chitogel, a chitosan-based hydrogel providing hemostatic and antimicrobial effects for surgical applications, particularly in ENT and sinus surgeries to reduce adhesions and infections. Commercialized since 2019, it has treated over 17,500 patients worldwide and features FDA approval with ongoing global expansion including a new manufacturing facility. His scholarly contributions include over 4,600 citations, with key publications such as 'Square planar silver(I) complexes: A rare but increasingly observed stereochemistry for silver(I)' (Coordination Chemistry Reviews, 2008), 'A one pot multi-component CuAAC “click” approach to bidentate and tridentate pyridyl-1,2,3-triazole ligands: Synthesis, X-ray structures and copper(II) and silver(I) complexes' (Polyhedron, 2010), 'Antimicrobial properties of a chitosan dextran-based hydrogel for surgical use' (Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, 2012), 'Topological isomerism in coordination polymers' (Chemical Communications, 2001), and 'Copper(I) iodide coordination networks—controlling the placement of (CuI)∞ ladders and chains within two-dimensional sheets' (Crystal Engineering, 1999). Awards include teaching accolades, Distinguished Service to the Sciences, the Douglas Pharmaceuticals Prize for Industrial and Applied Chemistry from the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry, and delivery of the 2016 Mellor Lecture. He contributed to the development of the Mellor Laboratories and supervised numerous doctoral theses.