W. Graham Richards

Graham is one of the pioneers of computational chemistry and molecular design, particularly for pharmaceutical applications. Over 40 years at the University of Oxford Chemistry Department, he introduced many of the techniques now routinely used in computer-aided drug design both in industry and academia. Graham’s influential paper Third age of quantum chemistry marked the development of computational techniques for theoretical analysis whose precision equaled or surpassed experimental results.

He was the scientific co-founder of Oxford Molecular, an Oxford spinout company that produced software for modelling of small molecules and proteins which went public in the London Stock Exchange and it is today part of Biovia. Graham was responsible for the creation of IP Group Plc whose first spin-out from the Oxford Chemistry Department was Oxford Nanopore Tech. Graham received his B.A. and D.Phil. from the University of Oxford. He was awarded a CBE and has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society.