Professor Donna E Davies BSc, PhD

Professor of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology

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Professor Donna Davies is Professor of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology, within Medicine at the University of Southampton.

Why do I study lung diseases? The average person takes around 20,000 breaths every day.... imagine fighting for every one of them. That's the reality for 1 person in 7 in the UK who is affected by lung disease

Professor Donna Davies (nee Harrison) was awarded a Personal Chair in Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology in 2004. She graduated with a first class degree in Biochemistry from the University of Wales and completed her PhD in microbial biochemistry in 1979. She started her post-doctoral studies at the University of Oxford investigating the regulation of insulin secretion and continued this work following the award of an RD Lawrence Fellowship from the British Diabetic Association in 1982. She moved to the CRC Wessex Medical Oncology Unit at the University of Southampton in 1985, before she joined the Respiratory Group through the award of a University of Southampton Senior Research Fellowship in 1998 and then a Readership in 2002.  In 2014, she received the Robert A. Cooke Memorial Medal from the American Academy Of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (since 2014), a Fellow of the European Respiratory Society (since 2015) and received lifetime membership of the British Association for Lung Research in recognition of her contribution to the BALR and lung research (since 2020). Her H-index is 79 and she has published more than 200 papers with a total of 23233 citations. 

Professor Davies leads a multidisciplinary group that studies mechanisms of respiratory diseases, especially in areas of unmet medical need such as severe, corticosteroid refractory asthma, virus-induced exacerbations of asthma and COPD, interstitial lung diseases such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and, most recently, COVID-19. She has pioneered the use of in vitro models allowing the use of methodologies that could not be used ethically in vivo. The group works closely with respiratory physicians and colleagues within the centre, with other academic centres and industry in the UK, Europe and the USA.

Notable discoveries from her work include demonstration of defective epithelial barrier function in asthma, dissection of the biological function of the asthma susceptibility gene, ADAM33, involvement of the epithelial mesenchymal tropic unit in asthma pathogenesis, dysregulation of collagen nanoarchitecture in IPF and identification of a lesion in innate immune response of asthmatic epithelial cells that may explain why the common cold virus causes exacerbations of asthma. The latter discovery led to a patent for the use of inhaled interferon-beta (IFN-β) for treatment of virus-induced exacerbations of asthma and COPD. To translate this discovery into a potentially new therapy, she co-founded the University of Southampton spin-out company ‘Synairgen’, with Stephen Holgate and Ratko Djukanovic in 2003 and she continues to play an active role in the company. The company has developed inhaled IFN-β and successfully completed phase II trials in asthma and COPD. With the urgency of the COVID19 pandemic, the company redirected its efforts towards testing inhaled  IFN-β  as a treatment for this disease. On 20 July 2020, Synairgen announced positive results from its Phase II double-blind placebo-controlled trial, called SG016, in hospitalised COVID-19 patients.  

Qualifications

BSc, Biochemistry, University of Wales (1975)

PhD, Ribulose 1,5 Bisphosphate Carboxylase from Microorganisms,
University of Wales (1979)

Appointments held

Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Nuffield Dept. of Clinical Biochemistry, University of Oxford (1979-1982)

R.D. Lawrence Fellow of The British Diabetic Association, Nuffield Dept. of Clinical Biochemistry, University of Oxford (1982-1984)

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Nuffield Dept. of Clinical Biochemistry, University of Oxford (1984-1985)

Research Fellow, Medical Oncology, University of Southampton (1985-1989)

Senior Research Fellow, Medical Oncology, University of Southampton (1989-1997)

Southampton Senior Research Fellow, University of Southampton (1998-2002)

Reader in Respiratory, Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Southampton (2002 – 2004)

Professor of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology, Division of Infection, Inflammation & Immunity, University of Southampton (2004-present)

Director, Allergy and Inflammation Research, University of Southampton 2008-2011

Head of Clinical and Experimental Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton 2011-2018