 He served as head of the Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research and was elected as president both of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) and of the Biophysical Society.Richards was born on August 19, 1925 in New York City to George H. Richards and Marianna Middlebrook Richards.Both parents were from old New England families who had settled in Fairfield and New London, Connecticut in the 1600s.