Staff profile

Academic life

Dr Aguilar is a specialist in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, focussing on technique development. He has degrees in Molecular Biology and Pharmacy.

Dr Aguilar started his scientific life with a degree in Biology and specialising in Molecular Biology. After obtaining the degree, Dr Aguilar became interested in Chemistry and in Medicine, so decided to obtain a degree in Pharmacy while at the same time undertaking a PhD that required the study of synthetic analogues of biological receptors. It was during this time that he became interested in the problem of how to develop new NMR methods. After obtaining the degree in Pharmacy and completing his PhD, he moved to the UK where he worked at the forefront of NMR research. His contributions include work on ultra-high resolution NMR as well as to the field of hyperpolarisation, a technique that was used to demonstrate that NMR and MRI signals can be amplified by several orders of magnitude.

Selected publications

Minimising Research Bottlenecks by Decluttering NMR Spectra
Juan A. Aguilar, Julia Cassani, Martina Delbianco, Ralph W. Adams, Mathias Nilsson, and Gareth A. Morris
>> Chemistry – A European Journal. 2015. 21. 6623 - 6630.

Simultaneously enhancing spectral resolution and sensitivity in heteronuclear correlation NMR spectroscopy
Liladhar Paudel, Ralph W. Adams, Peter Kiraly, Juan A. Aguilar, Mohammadali Foroozandeh, Matthew J. Cliff, Mathias Nilsson, Peter Sandor, Jonathan P. Waltho, and Gareth A. Morris
 >> Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2013, 52, 11616 - 11619

Simple Proton Spectra from Complex Spin Systems: Pure Shift NMR Spectroscopy Using BIRD
Juan A. Aguilar, Mathias Nilsson and G. A. Morris
>> Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2011. 50. 9716-9717

Pure Shift 1H NMR: A Resolution of the Resolution Problem?
Juan A. Aguilar, S. Faulkner, Mathias Nilsson and G. A. Morris
>> Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2010. 49. 3901-3903.

True Chemical Shift Correlation Maps: A TOCSY Experiment with Pure Shifts in Both Dimensions
Gareth A. Morris, Juan A. Aguilar, Robert Evans, Stephan Haiber and Mathias Nilsson
>> J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2010, 132, 12770

"Perfecting" WATERGATE: clean proton NMR spectra from aqueous solutions
Ralph W. Adams, Chloe M. Holroyd, Juan A. Aguilar, Mathias Nilsson and G. A. Morris
>> Chemical Communications. 2013. 49. 358-360.

Spin echo NMR spectra without J modulation
Juan A. Aguilar, Mathias Nilsson, Geoffrey Bodenhausen and G. A. Morris
>> Chemical Communications. 2012. 48. 811-813.

Reversible Interactions with para-Hydrogen Enhance NMR Sensitivity by Polarization Transfer
R. W. Adams, J. A. Aguilar, K. D. Atkinson, M. J. Cowley, P. I. P. Elliott, S. B. Duckett, G. G. R. Green, I. G. Khazal, J. López-Serrano, and D. C. Williamson
>> Science. 2009. 323. 1708-1711

• NMR development
• G-quadruplexes
• Metabolomics

• Bioactive Chemistry and Synthesis

Journal Article

• Seydel, Tilo, Edkins, Robert M., Jones, Christopher D., Foster, Jonathan A., Bewley, Robert, Aguilar, Juan A. & Edkins, Katharina (2018). Increased rate of solvent diffusion in a prototypical supramolecular gel measured on the picosecond timescale. Chemical Communications 54(49): 6340-6343.