Donna Davies

Early life and education Davies started her scientific career at the University of Wales, where she graduated with a degree in biochemistry in 1975 before starting a PhD in microbial biochemistry. In 1979 she completed her graduate research, investigated the biochemistry of the most abundant enzyme on earth: ribulose-1-5-bisphosphate carboxylase (RuBisCO). As a result, targeting this defective barrier may offer opportunity to help patients with difficult to treat asthma.

She has proposed that the reason common cold (rhinovirus) viruses can exacerbate asthma is because of a lesion in the immune response of epithelial cells in patients with asthma. The models make use of human airway epithelial and dendritic cells from patients with and without asthma. but suggested this can be corrected through the introduction of interferon-beta, an anti-viral protein. Synairgen produce an inhaled interferon-beta drug (SNG001) that can treat patients with asthma and COPD that has been worsened by viruses. which contributes to the progression and severity of asthma because of aberrant repair response. In a clinical trial of one hundred hospitalised COVID-19 patients, patients treated with SNG001 were 80% less likely to develop a serious form of COVID-19. After news of the successful drug trail, share prices in Synairgen rose 540%.

Awards and honours Davies was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2014.