Biography
Conor is a Royal Society-Research Ireland University Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin. He studied Science at University College Dublin, majoring in Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and completed his PhD there. He then held positions at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces and the Leibniz Institute for Molecular Pharmacology. Conor's research uses organic synthesis and chemical biology to decode the roles of carbohydrates in biology. His group synthesises oligosaccharides, inhibitors, and chemical probes to study microbial symbiosis in the human gut and carbon storage in the ocean.
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Doyle S., Kiernan M., Smyth J., Mathew A., Crawford C.J., Bruno-Colmenarez J., Guiry P.J., Khalifa A., Evans P., Stereoselective Construction of Benzo-Fused Tetrahydropyrrole Thiazines From Saccharin, European Journal of Organic Chemistry, 2026
Krull, J., Sidhu, C., Solanki, V., Bligh, M., Rößler, L., Singh, R.K., Huang, G., Robb, C.S., Teeling, H., Seeberger, P.H., Schweder, T., Crawford, C.J., Hehemann, J.-H., Sulfated mannan of diatoms selects host-specific microbiota in the sunlit ocean, Microbiome, 14, (1), 2026
Crawford C.J., Tomlinson C.W.E., Gunawan C., Chen Z., Byrne D.P., Darby C., Conti M.L.G., Larson T., Luis A.S., Elli S., Yates E.A., Bolam D.N., Van Der Post S., Williams S.J., Cartmell A., Arylsulfamates inhibit colonic Bacteroidota growth through a sulfatase-independent mechanism, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 122, (28), 2025
Crawford C.J., Reintjes G., Solanki V., Ricardo M.G., Harder J., Amann R., Hehemann J.-H., Seeberger P.H., Activity-Based Tracking of Glycan Turnover in Microbiomes, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 147, (29), 2025, p25799 - 25805, p25799-25805
Bligh M., Silva-Solar S., Biehler L., Fitzgerald C.C.J., Crawford C.J., Schultz-Johansen M., Niggemeier S., Seeberger P.H., Liebeke M., Hehemann J.-H., De Novo Glycan Annotation of Mass Spectrometry Data, Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, 36, (8), 2025, p1686 - 1695, p1686-1695
Hauck, D., Jumde, V.R., Crawford, C.J., Titz, A., Optimized Henry Reaction Conditions for the Synthesis of an l-Fucose C-Glycosyl Derivative, Carbohydrate Chemistry Proven Synthetic Methods Volume 5, 5, 2024, p17-22
Crawford C.J., Liporagi-Lopes L., Coelho C., Santos Junior S.R., Moraes Nicola A., Wear M.P., Vij R., Oscarson S., Casadevall A., Semisynthetic Glycoconjugate Vaccine Candidates against Cryptococcus neoformans, ACS Infectious Diseases, 10, (6), 2024, p2089 - 2100, p2089-2100
Crawford C.J., Guazzelli L., McConnell S.A., McCabe O., d'Errico C., Greengo S.D., Wear M.P., Jedlicka A.E., Casadevall A., Oscarson S., Synthetic Glycans Reveal Determinants of Antibody Functional Efficacy against a Fungal Pathogen, ACS Infectious Diseases, 10, (2), 2024, p475 - 488, p475-488
Crawford C.J., Schultz-Johansen M., Luong P., Vidal-Melgosa S., Hehemann J.-H., Seeberger P.H., Automated Synthesis of Algal Fucoidan Oligosaccharides, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 146, (27), 2024, p18320 - 18330, p18320-18330
Hargett A.A., Azurmendi H.F., Crawford C.J., Wear M.P., Casadevall S.O.A., Freedberg D.I., The structure of a Cryptococcus neoformans polysaccharide motif recognized by protective antibodies: A combined NMR and MD study, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121, (7), 2024
Crawford C.J., Seeberger P.H., Advances in glycoside and oligosaccharide synthesis, Chemical Society Reviews, 52, (22), 2023, p7773 - 7801, p7773-7801
Maggie P. Wear, Audra A. Hargett, John E. Kelly, Scott A. McConnell, Conor J. Crawford, Darón I. Freedberg, Ruth E. Stark, Arturo Casadevall, Lyophilization induces physicochemical alterations in cryptococcal exopolysaccharide, Carbohydrate Polymers, 291, 2022, p119547
Maggie P. Wear, Ella Jacobs, Siqing Wang, Scott A. McConnell, Anthony Bowen, Camilla Strother, Radames J.B. Cordero, Conor J. Crawford, Arturo Casadevall, Cryptococcus neoformans capsule regrowth experiments reveal dynamics of enlargement and architecture, Journal of Biological Chemistry, 298, (4), 2022, p101769
Solanki V., Kruger K., Crawford C.J., Pardo-Vargas A., Danglad-Flores J., Hoang K.L.M., Klassen L., Abbott D.W., Seeberger P.H., Amann R.I., Teeling H., Hehemann J.-H., Glycoside hydrolase from the GH76 family indicates that marine Salegentibacter sp. Hel_I_6 consumes alpha-mannan from fungi, ISME Journal, 16, (7), 2022, p1818 - 1830, p1818-1830
Conor J. Crawford and Yan Qiao and Yequn Liu and Dongmei Huang and Wenjun Yan and Peter H. Seeberger and Stefan Oscarson and Shuai Chen, Defining the Qualities of High-Quality Palladium on Carbon Catalysts for Hydrogenolysis, Organic Process Research & Development, 2021
Conor J. Crawford, Maggie P. Wear, Daniel F. Q. Smith, Clotilde d"Errico, Scott A. McConnell, Arturo Casadevall, Stefan Oscarson, A glycan FRET assay for detection and characterization of catalytic antibodies to the Cryptococcus neoformans capsule, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118, (5), 2021
Vij R., Danchik C., Crawford C., Dragotakes Q., Casadevall A., Variation in cell surface hydrophobicity among Cryptococcus neoformans strains influences interactions with amoebas, mSphere, 5, (2), 2020
Crawford C.J., Oscarson S., Convergent total synthesis of Cryptococcus neoformans serotype B capsule repeating motif, Carbohydrate Research, 497, 2020
Lorenzo Guazzelli, Conor J. Crawford, Rebecca Ulc, Anthony Bowen, Orla McCabe, Anne J. Jedlicka, Maggie P. Wear, Arturo Casadevall, Stefan Oscarson, A synthetic glycan array containing Cryptococcus neoformans glucuronoxylomannan capsular polysaccharide fragments allows the mapping of protective epitopes, Chemical Science, 2020
Crawford C., Oscarson S., Optimized Conditions for the Palladium-Catalyzed Hydrogenolysis of Benzyl and Naphthylmethyl Ethers: Preventing Saturation of Aromatic Protecting Groups, European Journal of Organic Chemistry, 2020, (22), 2020, p3332 - 3337, p3332-3337
Conor J. Crawford, Radamés J.B. Cordero, Lorenzo Guazzelli, Maggie P. Wear, Anthony Bowen, Stefan Oscarson, Arturo Casadevall, Exploring Cryptococcus neoformans capsule structure and assembly with a hydroxylamine-armed fluorescent probe, Journal of Biological Chemistry, 295, (13), 2020, p4327--4340
Research Expertise
Projects
- Title
- A chemical approach to unravel marine glycan-mediated carbon sequestration
- Funding Agency
- Research Ireland
- Date From
- 2026
- Date To
- 2030
- Title
- Chemical glycobiology of algal carbon sinks
- Funding Agency
- Royal Society-Research Ireland
- Date From
- 2026
- Date To
- 2034