Stephen Graham Davies (born 24 February 1950) is a British

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...

and was, until his retirement, the

Waynflete Professor of Chemistry The Waynflete Professorships are four professorial fellowships at the University of Oxford endowed by Magdalen College and named in honour of the college founder William of Waynflete, who had a great interest in science. These professorships are st ...

at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

Education

Davies obtained his

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree in 1973 from

New College, Oxford New College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by Bishop William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as New College's feeder school, New College was one of the first col ...

, and his

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

in 1975 under the supervision of Gordon H. Whitham.

Career and research

After his PhD, Davies subsequently held an ICI Postdoctoral Fellowship working with Malcolm Green (1975-1977) and a

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

Fellowship working with

Derek Barton Sir Derek Harold Richard Barton (8 September 1918 – 16 March 1998) was an English organic chemist and Nobel Prize laureate for 1969. Education and early life Barton was born in Gravesend, Kent, to William Thomas and Maude Henrietta Barton ...

(1977-1978) before joining the

Centre national de la recherche scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

(CNRS) at

Gif-sur-Yvette Gif-sur-Yvette (, "Gif-on- Yvette") is a commune in southwestern Île-de-France, France. It is located in the Vallée de Chevreuse, from the centre of Paris (at Notre-Dame), in the Essonne department on the departmental border with Yvelin ...

as Attaché de Recherche working with Hugh Felkin. In 1980 he returned to Oxford to take up a University Lectureship in Chemistry. Whilst remaining an active academic, in 1991 he founded Oxford Asymmetry Ltd (an asymmetric synthesis company) as sole investor. He also founded Oxford Diversity Ltd (a combinatorial chemistry company). These two companies were combined to form Oxford Asymmetry International Plc in 1999 which was sold to Evotec in 2000, valued at £316m. In 2003 he founded VASTox (Value Added Screening Technology Oxford) a zebrafish screening company. It floated on AIM in 2004 and has since acquired Dainolabs (zebrafish) and Dextra (a carbohydrate chemistry company) as well as the assets of MNL Pharma. VASTox then changed its name to Summit. In 2009 the zebrafish screening operations was acquired by Evotec for £0.5 Million. In 1996, he became Professor of Chemistry and in 2006,

. Davies is founder and editor-in-chief for the journal ''Tetrahedron: Asymmetry''. Davies along with Malcolm Green and Michael Mingos have compiled a set of rules that summarize where nucleophilic additions will occur on pi ligands.

Awards

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society and professional association in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemistry, chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the ...

Hickinbottom Award (1984) *

Pfizer Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered at The Spiral (New York City), The Spiral in Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 184 ...

Award for Chemistry (1985 and 1988) * Royal Society of Chemistry Award for Organometallic Chemistry (1987) * Royal Society of Chemistry

Bader Award The Bader Award is a prize for organic chemistry awarded annually by the Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society and professional association in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chem ...

(1989) * Royal Society of Chemistry Tilden Lecture Award (1997/98) * Royal Society of Chemistry Award in Stereochemistry (1997) * Prize Lectureship of the Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan (1998) * Royal Society of Chemistry Perkin Prize for Organic Chemistry (2011)

Personal life

Davies is the son of Gordon W. J. Davies and June M. Murphy. In 1973 he married Kay E. Partridge who was to become a foremost human geneticist. They have one son.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davies, Stephen Graham Living people British chemists 1950 births Alumni of New College, Oxford Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford Fellows of New College, Oxford Waynflete Professors of Chemistry

Education

Career and research

Awards

Personal life

See also

References