Dai Rees

Career

Rees was a lecturer in chemistry at the University of Edinburgh from 1960 until 1970, researching carbohydrate conformation and structure. He then joined Unilever, where he rose to become principal scientist. He left in 1982 to become director of the National Institute for Medical Research before serving as chief executive of the Medical Research Council from 1987 to 1996. He was president of the European Science Foundation between 1994 and 1999. In 1970, Rees was awarded both the Carbohydrate Chemistry Award by the Chemical Society and the Colworth Medal by the Biochemical Society. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1981 and delivered the Royal Society's Philips Lecture in 1984. He was knighted in the 1993 Birthday Honours. He was one of the 58 founding fellows of the Learned Society of Wales in 2010.