Career
Dr. 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 director of the MRC functional genetics unit, a governor of the Wellcome Trust 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.
Read more about this topic: Kay Davies
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