Dame Kay Elizabeth Davies (''née'' Partridge; born 1 April 1951) is a British geneticist. She is Dr Lee's Professor of Anatomy at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

and a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

Hertford College, Oxford Hertford College ( ), previously known as Magdalen Hall, is a colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on Catte Street in the centre of Oxford, directly opposite the main ga ...

. She is director of the Medical Research Council (MRC) functional genetics unit, a governor of the

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of Burroughs Wellcome, one of the predec ...

,Kay Davies a director of the Oxford Centre for Gene Function, and a patron and Senior Member of Oxford University Scientific Society. Her research group has an international reputation for work on

Duchenne muscular dystrophy Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a severe type of muscular dystrophy predominantly affecting boys. The onset of muscle weakness typically begins around age four, with rapid progression. Initially, muscle loss occurs in the thighs and pe ...

(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 and education

Davies was born in

Stourbridge Stourbridge () is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Situated on the River Stour, Worcestershire, River Stour, the town lies around west of Birmingham, at the southwester ...

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands (county), West ...

(now West Midlands). She was educated at the Gig Mill School, Stourbridge County High School for Girls,

Somerville College, Oxford Somerville College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. It began admitting men in 1994. The colle ...

, and

Wolfson College, Oxford Wolfson College () is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Wolfson is an all-graduate college, it prides itself on being one of the most international colleges at Oxford, with part ...

. She was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1976 for research on the structure and function of

chromatin Chromatin is a complex of DNA and protein found in eukaryote, eukaryotic cells. The primary function is to package long DNA molecules into more compact, denser structures. This prevents the strands from becoming tangled and also plays important r ...

from the

slime mould Slime mold or slime mould is an informal name given to a polyphyletic assemblage of unrelated eukaryotic organisms in the Stramenopiles, Rhizaria, Discoba, Amoebozoa and Holomycota clades. Most are near-microscopic; those in the Myxogastria ...

Physarum polycephalum ''Physarum polycephalum'', an Multinucleate, acellular slime mold or myxomycete popularly known as "the blob", is a protist with diverse cellular forms and broad geographic distribution. The “acellular” moniker derives from the plasmodial s ...

''.

Career and research

Davies's research group has an international reputation for work on

(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 Dystrophin is a rod-shaped cytoplasmic protein, and a vital part of a protein complex that connects the cytoskeleton of a muscle fiber to the surrounding extracellular matrix through the cell membrane. This complex is variously known as the costa ...

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residue (biochemistry), residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including Enzyme catalysis, catalysing metab ...

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

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...

fellow Dr Peter Oliver investigating neurodegenerative and movement disorders. Davies is director of the Medical Research Council (MRC) functional genetics unit, a governor of the

and, with Frances Ashcroft and Peter Donnelly is a director of the Oxford Centre for Gene Function. She was an Executive Editor of the journal '' Human Molecular Genetics''. and stepped down in 2021. In 2020, together with Richard P. Lifton, she co-chaired a commission report on the contentious subject of Hereditary Human Genome Editing, under the auspices of the

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), also known as the National Academies, is a Congressional charter, congressionally chartered organization that serves as the collective scientific national academy of the Uni ...

and the UK

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. She has published more than 400 papers and won numerous awards for her work. She has been a Governor of the Wellcome Trust since 2008 and became Deputy chairman in 2013-18. She was the recipient of the Women in to Science and Engineering (WISE) Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: Her former doctoral students include Irene Miguel-Aliaga and Sonja Vernes.

Controversy

In 2022, she was one of fifteen co-authors on a paper describing the use of a nasal spray, pHOXWELL, to reduce infection with SARS-CoV-2. The paper however came under scrutiny at the end of 2023, and was ultimately retracted in 2025 due to issues regarding the ethical approvals and subject recruitment of the study not adhering to the standards. The retraction came after an expression of concern was added to the paper in February 2025.

Award and honours

Davies was a founding Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 1998, and was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

in 2003. Already a

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(CBE), she was advanced to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours. In 2009 she was awarded the Award for Excellence in Molecular Diagnostics by the Association for Molecular Pathology. She is an Honorary Fellow, Somerville College, University of Oxford. She gave the inaugural Rose Lecture at

Kingston University Kingston University London is a Public university, public research university located within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, in South London, South West London, England. Its roots go back to the Kingston Technical Institute, founded ...

in 2012 and delivered the Harveian Oration at the

Royal College of Physicians The Royal College of Physicians of London, commonly referred to simply as the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), is a British professional membership body dedicated to improving the practice of medicine, chiefly through the accreditation of ph ...

in 2013. In 2015, she was awarded the William Allan Award by the

American Society of Human Genetics The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG), founded in 1948, is a professional membership organization for specialists in human genetics. As of 2009, the organization had approximately 8,000 members. The society's members include researchers, ...

. She was appointed a Patron of The SMA Trust in September 2016. Davies was awarded the Croonian Lecture by the

in 2018 for "her achievements in developing a prenatal test for Duchenne muscular dystrophy and for her work characterising the binding partners of the protein dystrophin".

Personal life

Davies continued to work with her former husband, Stephen G. Davies, on scientific projects, even after their separation in 2000. Their son studied Biology and gained a doctorate at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

between 2006 and 2015. She married Christopher Williams in 2019.

References

ISI highly cited researchers {{DEFAULTSORT:Davies, Kay 1951 births Living people Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellows Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford Alumni of Wolfson College, Oxford British anatomists British geneticists British women geneticists Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire Female fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) Fellows of Hertford College, Oxford British academic journal editors Wellcome Trust British public health doctors People from Stourbridge Oxford University Press people Dr Lee's Professors of Anatomy Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford Professors of Genetics (University of Oxford) 20th-century British non-fiction writers 21st-century British non-fiction writers British women public health doctors