The Department of Biochemistry at Oxford University began as the
physiological chemistry section of the Physiology Department, and acquired its own separate department and building in the 1920s. In 1920,
Benjamin Moore was elected to the position of the
Whitley Professor of Biochemistry, the newly established Chair of Biochemistry at Oxford University. He was followed by
Rudolph Peters in 1923, and an endowment of £75,000 was soon granted by the
Rockefeller Foundation for the construction of a new departmental building, purchase of equipment, and its maintenance. The Biochemistry Department building opened in 1927. In 1954,
Hans Krebs was appointed the Whitley Chair of Biochemistry, and his appointment brought greater prominence to the department. He brought with him the
Medical Research Council unit established to conduct research on cell metabolism. In 1955, a second professorship in the department, the Iveagh Chair of Microbiology, was established with funding from Guinness and the sub-department of Microbiology created, with
Donald Woods its first holder. The eight-storey Hans Krebs Building was constructed in 1964 with funds from the Rockefeller Foundation. Krebs was succeeded by
Rodney Porter in 1967. Genetics was brought into the Biochemistry Department when
Walter Bodmer was appointed the first
Professor of Genetics in 1970. The Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics, first established in the
Zoology Department with support from Krebs and also linked to the
Physical Chemistry Laboratory of the
Chemistry Department, became part of the Biochemistry Department. It moved into the
Rex Richards building built in 1984, with
David Phillips the Professor in Molecular Biophysics. The department is now part of the
Medical Sciences Division of Oxford University, under the Divisional Boards formed in 2000. In 2006, two older biochemistry buildings were demolished, followed by two more including the Han Krebs Tower in 2014, to make way for the two-phase construction of the New Biochemistry Building. Francis Barr, the EP Abraham Professor of Mechanistic Cell Biology, is the head of the Biochemistry Department, replacing Mark Sansom, the David Phillips Professor in Molecular Biophysics, in January 2019. ==Research==