Letters: March 2025

Graham Richards

Members of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) will be saddened to hear that Graham Richards died in his sleep on 11 February 2025, aged 85. Richards made exceptional contributions to the chemistry community throughout his illustrious career and will be greatly missed by his colleagues and friends in the RSC.

Richards was born in 1939 to a mother whose schooling finished at the age of 11. His background would not have been typical of the students who went up to Brasenose College at the University of Oxford in 1958. He thrived in academia, graduating with a first-class degree in chemistry in 1961, and was also a consummate athlete, representing the university in the high jump and playing in a Brasenose hockey cuppers-winning side that included several international players. He followed his degree with a DPhil in 1964 under the supervision of Richard Barrow, working on electronic spectroscopy of diatomic molecules.

After postdoctoral research in France, Richards returned to Oxford as a tutor at Brasenose College and lecturer (later reader, and then professor) in physical chemistry. His work on laser spectroscopy of small molecules led him to explore computational chemistry. At that time this was a novel technique which proved invaluable in predicting chemical parameters that were challenging to measure.

During his career the focus of his work shifted towards biological chemistry. Richards’ work on early computational drug discovery programmes laid the foundations for the field now known as computer-aided molecular design.

A computer program that he developed asked the public to donate home computing power when not in use to scientific research. He screened billions of molecules for cancer-fighting potential using idle screensaver time. The project was an early citizen science initiative, ran for six years and made use of a combined 450,000 years of computer time to identify molecules with potential for drug development.

In Oxford, Richards served as the first chairman of the unified department of chemistry from 1997 to 2006. He was instrumental in the fundraising and building of the new Chemistry Research Laboratory, a world-class facility for modern chemical research that was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004. Richards also paved the way for a culture of enterprise and innovation at Oxford that continues to this day.

Richards retired in 2007, but continued to offer help, advice and guidance to the community, regularly giving talks on spinning out – as far afield as New Zealand. I will remember him as a generous and supportive mentor throughout my career and for his encouragement and initial guidance in the development of our spinout company OMass Therapeutics. In terms of his RSC involvement, he chaired the publishing board for a number of years and was a stalwart supporter of RSC events. He was also heavily involved in the RSC’s acquisition of the Chemspider database as a resource for the community.

He will be remembered fondly by all those who knew him, and our heartfelt condolences go to his widow, Mary Phillips, and to his wider family.

Dame Carol Robinson DBE HonFRSC FRS
University of Oxford, UK

Vogel’s legacy

Andrea Sella’s biography of Arthur Vogel made me smile (Chemistry World, February 2025, p62). I remember having to endure a short course in analytical chemistry in the 1970s and I purchased A Text-book of Quantitative Inorganic Analysis at great personal expense. It was by far the biggest and heaviest textbook I had and I am still impressed with the comprehensive content, detailed background chemistry and the black and white photographs of the instruments. It was the first book on the shelf in any laboratory where analysis was practised.

Rhobert Lewis FRSC
Brecon, UK

Guerilla outreach

Outreach events face a crucial challenge: they often only reach those already invested in the topic. So, what can we do to extend the boundaries?

As part of my job, I spend quite a bit of time on trains. To keep myself occupied, I use this time to read. And yes, this is when I catch up with Chemistry World. However, after completing the magazine, it often ends up still in pristine condition in the recycling bin – what a waste!

Haven’t we all picked up a newspaper someone left on the train just to kill some time? Recently, I found myself learning about birdwatching from a magazine someone had left in my seat. So, I started leaving my Chemistry World on the train, hoping that someone who might otherwise never encounter a chemistry magazine would pick it up. Undoubtedly, it will still end up in the bin, but there is a chance that someone bored on board might have a read or just flick through the pictures first.

But it doesn’t end there. Leave a copy where others will find it, for example, with the other magazines at your GP surgery or dentist. If every Chemistry World were read by a non-chemist, we would reach almost 30,000 people outside our community – every month! I would call this a successful outreach event.

Stefan Roesner
Liverpool, UK