Kay Davies

Kay Davies, PhD, DBE FMedSci FRS was elected to the Scientific Advisory Board in November 2019.

Kay Davies, PhD, DBE FMedSci FRS is the Professor of Genetics in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics and Associate Head, Development, Impact and Equality, in the Medical Sciences Division at the University of Oxford. She established and was Director of the MRC Functional Genomics Unit 1999-2017 and co-founded the Oxford Centre of Gene Function in 2000, a new institute going from genetic association in human disease to function in the whole organism. She is Co-Director of the MDUK Oxford Neuromuscular Centre. She has published more than 400 papers and won numerous awards for her work. She has also co-founded companies to translate her work to the clinic (e.g. Summit Therapeutics). Kay Davies is a founding Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society. She was appointed Governor of the Wellcome Trust in 2008 and became Deputy Chair 2013-17. She chairs the Genome England Clinical Interpretation Partnership in the UK and is a member of the GRL Board at the Sanger Institute. Kay Davies serves on the Board of Oxford Biomedica and UCB Pharma plc. She was made Dame Commander of the British Empire for services to science in 2008.

Prof. Davies received a BA degree in Chemistry and a graduate PhD degree in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford. She then held postdoctoral fellowships in Paris and London before moving back to Oxford where she was appointed Dr Lee’s Professor of Anatomy in 1998 and Professor of Genetics in 2019.