Ben Davis

Benjamin Guy Davis (born 8 August 1970 in Hatfield, Hertfordshire) is a highly distinguished British chemist whose work bridges chemical biology, synthetic biology and glycobiology. He currently holds the position of Professor of Chemical Biology in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford and is a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, while also serving as Science Director for Next Generation Chemistry at the Rosalind Franklin Institute. Davis’s academic journey began at Nottingham High School and continued at the University of Oxford, where he earned a BA in Chemistry with Chemical Pharmacology in 1993 and completed a PhD in 1996 under the supervision of George Fleet, focusing on the synthesis of inhibitors of sugar‑processing enzymes. Following his doctorate, he pursued post‑doctoral research with J. Bryan Jones at the University of Toronto, where he helped develop early targeted protein degradation systems in collaboration with Genencor International. Returning to the UK in 1998, he joined Durham University as a lecturer before moving to Oxford’s Dyson Perrins Laboratory in 2001, where he was awarded a fellowship at Pembroke College and promoted to Professor of Chemistry in 2005. His research group investigates the chemical manipulation of biomolecular function, emphasizing the design of synthetic carbohydrates and proteins, biocatalysis, enzyme mechanisms, and in‑vivo chemistry, with funding from major UK research councils and industry partners such as AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline. Davis’s contributions have been recognised by numerous awards, including the Royal Society’s Davy Medal (2020), the Whistler Award (2016), and the Mullard Award (2005), and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2015. In addition to his scientific achievements, he was elected to the Academia Europaea (2017) and the Academy of Medical Sciences (2019), underscoring his impact on both fundamental chemistry and its translation to medical applications.