| Birth Date: | 22 March 1876 |
| Birth Place: | Stamford, New York, US |
| Workplaces: | University of Pennsylvania |
| Alma Mater: | Yale University |
| Awards: | Fellow of the Royal Society |
Alfred Newton Richards (March 22, 1876 - March 24, 1966) was an American pharmacologist.[1] Richards, along with Wearn, is credited with the method of renal micropuncture to study the functioning of kidneys in 1924.[2]
Richards was born in Stamford, New York the son of Rev. Leonard E. Richards and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Burbank. He was educated at the Stamford Seminary and Union Free School. He then studied at Yale University.[3]
He served as chairman of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine's department of pharmacology from 1910 to 1946 and was the university's vice president of medical affairs from 1939 to 1948.
In 1941, then U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed Richards chairman of the Committee on Medical Research. The office was terminated five years later, in 1946, after which Richards became president of the National Academy of Sciences, serving until 1950.
In 1948, President Harry Truman appointed Richards to the Medical Affairs Task Force of the Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government; Richards also became a director of Merck & Co., for which he had consulted since 1931, and an associate trustee of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1948.
He married Lillian L. Woody in 1908.[4]
Richards' technique for the study of kidney functioning is considered a landmark in animal physiology research.[5] The Richards Medical Research Laboratories building at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the best-known and most influential designs of architect Louis Kahn, is named for him.
In addition, Richards was awarded the following honorary degrees: