Page 4 - PERIODIC Magazine Issue 5

Lu
The cky Chemist

Professor Graham Richards CBE, one of the most successful scientists
and entrepreneurs of his generation, reflects on a remarkable career in
an address to alumni at Salters’ Hall.

I went up to Brasenose in 1958 and thus started my
Part II in 1961. By sheer luck my project involved me
doing some difficult integrals and I was one of the small
number of lazy people around at the time who realized
that any integrals could be done numerically using the
new-fangled computer. Thus I became one of the first
chemists to use the computer although neither my
supervisor nor any of the older research students in the
group had ever used the machine and everyone knew
that computers had no future, especially in chemistry.
That computer was a Ferranti Mercury, at the time the
best computer in the world and boasted a 32K memory
and was the size of a house. It was on that machine
that the crystal structures of Dorothy Hodgkin were
produced.

Finishing a DPhil in 1964 was really lucky as the foolish
government created several new universities all at
All of us who read chemistry at Oxford were in many the same time and the existing ones doubled in size.
ways lucky. Apart from the intrinsic interest of the Jobs were very easy to get and so I soon had my own
subject, it sits in the middle of the scientific spectrum so research group and did accurate theoretical calculations
that one also learns a lot of physics and biology. Perhaps on diatomic molecules.
even more fortunate is the fact that it is almost unique in
preparing one for a future career. Of all disciplines it is Then out of the blue I received a letter from Anthony
the most related to the real world. Britain is still a major Roe who was working with Jim Black (later the Nobel
force in chemical, pharmaceutical and energy industries prizewinner Sir James Black) at the pharmaceutical
in a way that is not true of physics-based industries. The company Smith Kline & French, seeking inhibitors of
subject is quantitative enough for it to be an excellent histamine in the gut. Anthony enclosed a theoretical
background for the financial world and with the growth paper which suggested that the two activities of
of importance of intellectual property, law is also an histamine were related to there being two conformers
attractive future. of the molecule and I was asked my opinion of the
paper, being one of the few people at that time in the
As well as having this background, perhaps the most UK doing theoretical calculations. I was not impressed
important thing which influences one’s career is luck. I by the theory but it could have been true, and so began
want to illustrate this by showing just how big a part luck a collaboration which quite quickly transformed my
played in my own career. research from small molecules into using computers to
I was lucky to get to Oxford given my own background. aid drug discovery.
My mother was one of 14 children and left school at the As computers developed and computer graphics
age of 11. Fortunately I went to one of the Direct Grant became possible, my work attracted more and more
schools before that excellent system was abolished. interest from the pharmaceutical industry.
My next bit of luck was missing National Service by
one day. At the time, foolishly, I was disappointed The next step was bad luck. In 1988 my then wife died
having been set to go into the Royal Marines. As it was, of cancer. The day after her funeral I rang my former
student Tony Marchington and said ‘Tony, you know

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Periodic The Magazine of the Department of Chemistry