Chemistry has been taught at King's since its foundation in 1829, and Copley medallist John Frederic Daniell was appointed the first professor. The Department of Chemistry was forced to close in 2003 due to a decline in student numbers and reduced funding. In 2012, a new Department of Chemistry was established and a new undergraduate degree, Chemistry with Biomedicine, was launched. The new department covers traditional areas of chemistry (organic, inorganic, physical and computational chemistry) and other academic discipline including cell biology and physics.