Kay Davies

Dame Kay Elizabeth Davies, DBE, FRS FMedSci (née Partridge; 1 April 1951) is a British geneticist.

She is a professor of Anatomy at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Hertford College. She is director of the MRC functional genetics unit, a governor of the Wellcome Trust and a director of the Oxford Centre for Gene Function. Her research group has an international reputation for work on Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). In the 1980s, she developed a test which allowed for the screening of foetuses whose mothers have a high risk of carrying DMD.

Early life

She was born as Kay Elizabeth Partridge and educated at the Gig Mill School, Stourbridge County High School for Girls, Somerville College, University of Oxford and Wolfson College, Oxford. ^[1]

Career

Davies' research group has an international reputation for work on Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). In the 1980s, she developed a test which allowed for the screening of foetuses whose mothers have a high risk of carrying DMD. DMD occurs when the dystrophin protein fails to express in muscle cells due to a mutation in the gene which codes for the protein. In 1989 Davies discovered that the utrophin protein has similar properties to dystrophin and has since shown in mouse models that up regulation of the former protein in muscle cells can compensate for the absence of latter.

Davies is currently collaborating with ERC fellow Dr Peter Oliver investigating neurodegenerative and movement disorders.^[2]

Davies is director of the MRC functional genetics unit, a governor of the Wellcome Trust ^[3] and, with Frances Ashcroft and Peter Donnelly is a director of the Oxford Centre for Gene Function. She is an Executive Editor of the journal Human Molecular Genetics.^[4]

Recognition

Davies became a founding Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1998, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2003. Already a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), she was advanced to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours.^[1]

She is an Honorary Fellow, Somerville College, University of Oxford. She gave the inaugural Rose Lecture at Kingston University in 2012 and delivered the Harveian Oration at the Royal College of Physicians in 2013.^[5]

Personal life

Davies continued to work with her former husband, Stephen G. Davies, on scientific projects, even after their separation in 2000. Their son is studying Biology at Edinburgh University.^[6]

See also

• Oxford University Scientific Society (Senior Member)

References

External links

• Kay E. Davies homepage in the MRC Functional Genetics Unit
• Research of Kay E. Davies on the molecular analysis of neuromuscular and neurological disorders

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