Raymond Dwek

Raymond Allen Dwek CBE FRS FRSC (born 10 November 1941) is a scientist at the University of Oxford and co-founder of the biotechnology company Oxford GlycoSciences Ltd.

Dwek was educated at Carmel College, and the University of Manchester, where he studied chemistry (1960–64).

Dwek read chemistry (1960–64) at the University of Manchester.

He then went to Oxford University and Lincoln College, Oxford, where he completed his DPhil in physical chemistry in 1966.

He completed his DPhil in physical chemistry at Oxford in 1966.

Following this, he became a research lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford, where he taught physical and inorganic chemistry.

In 1969, he was invited to join the Biochemistry Department, working with other members of the Oxford Enzyme Group.

Dwek is the author of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) in biochemistry – application to enzyme systems (OUP, 1973), Principles and Problems in Physical Chemistry for Biochemists, with N C Price (OUP, 1974) and Biology Spectroscopy with I D Campbell (Benjamin Cummings, 1984).

He has published over 600 peer reviewed articles and about 100 patents.

In 1974, he was elected Royal Society Locke Research fellow, working on antibodies.

This led to his appointment as university lecturer in biochemistry with a fellowship, by special election, at Exeter College in 1976.

At the same time, he was also appointed a lecturer in biochemistry at Trinity College to help build up the subject there.

In 1985, Dwek secured the first industrial grant to Oxford University in its 950-year history, from Monsanto Company USA, which was developing a pharmaceutical arm.

The grant was to develop the technology for sequencing oligosaccharides.

Over 13 years the value of the grant was almost $100M.

He became Professor of Glycobiology in 1988 in the Department of Biochemistry.

In 1988, Dwek was made Professor of Glycobiology.

Also in 1988, Dwek was the founding scientist and non-executive director of Oxford GlycoSciences Plc (formerly Oxford GlycoSystems), which was established to commercialise technologies arising from his research at the Glycobiology Institute.

In 1991, Dwek became Director of the Glycobiology Institute which he founded and which was built with funds from Monsanto/Searle.

Dwek's research on antibodies led directly to defining the function of the attached oligosaccharides and from which the field of glycobiology emerged – a word coined by Dwek which entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1992.

Other honours include the 7th Wellcome Trust Award for Research in Biochemistry Related to Medicine (1994), the First Scientific Leadership Award of the Hepatitis B Foundation (1997), The Romanian Order of Merit (2000), the Huxley Medal of the Institute of Biology (2007) and the K.T. Wang Bioorganic Chemistry Prize and Lecture, Taiwan.

In 1995, the company was mentioned as part of the Queen's Anniversary Prize to the University of Oxford.

Dwek has received honorary doctorates from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (1996), Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel (2001), the Scripps Research Institute, USA (2004), Cluj University, Romania (2006) and University College Dublin, Ireland (2010).

He was scientific advisor to the presidents of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel from 1997 to 2019, where he helped to build the National Institute of Biotechnology in the Negev.

He was also scientific advisor to the Institute of Biochemistry in Bucharest.

In 1998, it was publicly quoted on the London Stock Exchange.

In 1998, Dwek was also the founding scientist and chairman of the Scientific Board and Director of Synergy, which was established in the United States to develop antiviral agents for the treatment of chronic Hepatitis B and C infections.

From 2000 to 2006, he was also head of the Department of Biochemistry.

In 2002 in collaboration with Glycobiology Institute, Oxford GlycoSciences had a drug for Gaucher disease approved worldwide.

This work was taken over by United Therapeutics, USA, and Dwek became a director of this company in 2002 and continues this appointment.

The company sponsored the antiviral laboratory at the Glycobiology Institute from 2002 to 2017 and continues its sponsorship of the Annual Unither Barry Blumberg Virology Lecture at Oxford University (2004-2027).

He was a director of ISIS Innovation (now called Oxford University Innovation, OUI) – the University's Intellectual Property Company (2003–8).

He is an Honorary Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford (2004).

He was a member of the Board of Scientific Governors at The Scripps Research Institute from 2007 to 2015 and an Institute Professor there in 2008.

Dwek was the Kluge Chair of Technology and Society at the Library of Congress in the US in 2007.

He held the Kluge Chair in Technology and Society at the Library of Congress, USA in 2007.

Dwek was President of the Institute of Biology from 2008 to 2010, overseeing the merger with the UK Science Federation to form the Royal Society of Biology.

Dwek was co-chair of the UK/Israel Science Council from 2012 to 2017.

Since 2013, Dwek has been a member of the scientific governing board of the newly established ShanghaiTech University.

He is an emeritus fellow of Exeter College, Oxford and since 2014, emeritus director of the Oxford Glycobiology Institute, which he founded in 1991.