Nationality British Role Chemist Name Stephen Davies | Spouse Kay Davies (1973-2000) | |
Born 24 February 1950 (age 74) ( 1950-02-24 ) Thesis Studies on epoxides (1975) Education New College, Oxford, University of Oxford | ||
Doctoral advisor Gordon H. Whitham | ||
Stephen Graham "Steve" Davies (born 24 February 1950) is a British chemist and the Waynflete Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford.
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Career
Davies obtained his BA in 1973 from New College, Oxford and his D.Phil. in 1975 under the supervision of Gordon H. Whitham. He subsequently held an ICI Postdoctoral Fellowship working with Malcolm Green (1975-1977) and a NATO Fellowship working with Derek Barton (1977-1978) before joining the CNRS at Gif-sur-Yvette 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, Waynflete Professor of Chemistry.
Davies is founder and editor-in-chief for 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
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.