• Source: Gideon Davies

      • Gideon John Davies (born 6 July 1964) is a professor of chemistry in the Structural Biology Laboratory (YSBL) at the University of York, UK. Davies is best known for his ground-breaking studies into carbohydrate-active enzymes, notably analysing the conformational and mechanistic basis for catalysis and applying this for societal benefit. In 2016 Davies was appointed the Royal Society Ken Murray Research Professor at the University of York. Gideon Davies has recently been elected to the Council of the Royal Society.


      Education


      Davies was educated at the University of Bristol where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry and a PhD in 1990 for research on the enzyme phosphoglycerate kinase isolated from the bacterium Bacillus stearothermophilus, and supervised by Herman Watson and Len Hall. He was awarded a Doctor of Science (DSc) degree from the University of Bristol in 2007.


      Career


      Following his PhD, Davies did postdoctoral research at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) outstation in Hamburg working with Keith S. Wilson on the use of synchrotron radiation in protein crystallography and also at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Grenoble. in 1990, Davies moved to York to work with Dale Wigley and Guy Dodson on DNA gyrase, starting his own group within YSBL in 1996 upon receiving a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. He was appointed Professor at the University of York in 2001 and awarded a Royal Society Ken Murray Research Professorship in 2016. He has collaborated with Alywn Jones, Bernard Henrissat, Steve Withers and David Vocadlo. Among those who undertook doctoral research with him are Tracey Gloster.


      = Research

      =
      Davies research investigates the biological chemistry of carbohydrates, from their structure to their roles in enzymology, glycobiology, use as biofuels and implications for gut microbiota. His research has been funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), European Research Council (ERC) and Alzheimer's Research UK.
      Davies has over 400 publications in peer-reviewed journals.


      = Awards and honours

      =
      Davies has won a number of awards for his work. These include The Davy Medal and Gabor Medal of the Royal Society, the John and Rita Cornforth Award (with Paul Walton), the Haworth Memorial, Khorana, Peptide and Protein, Corday-Morgan and Carbohydrate Chemistry medals of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the iChemE Global Energy Award of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (with Paul Walton and Bernard Henrissat), The Whistler Prize of the International Carbohydrate Organization, and the GlaxoSmithKline Award of the Biochemical Society. In 2019 he was one of the members of the York Structural Biology Laboratory at the University of York that received the Queen's Anniversary Prize.
      Davies was elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 2010 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC)

      In 2010, Davies was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). His nomination reads: Professor Gideon Davies' research is focused on "structural enzymology". In this he addresses the enzymes, and their accessory domains, that are involved in the synthesis, modification and breakdown of carbohydrates. His chemical and structural insight into protein-carbohydrate interactions and his brilliant exploitation of advanced crystallographic methods provide the basis for understanding how the chemical and structural factors in the stereochemical pathway of the enzyme:substrate complex govern specificity and catalysis. His research is having an immense impact on carbohydrate chemistry and biology and biological catalysis generally.
      Davies was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2014, his nomination readsGideon Davies, who is Professor of Biological Chemistry at University of York, has made world-leading contributions to Biochemistry. He has made fundamental additions to our understanding of enzyme mechanism and carbohydrate biochemistry. As a direct result of his work into the conformation of sugars during turnover, he described the rational design of highly potent inhibitors of O-linked glucosamine modifying enzymes. These compounds are showing potential as treatments for Alzheimer's disease. Recently he has turned to study the human microbiota, which are now recognised to be an essential component of human health, and their carbohydrate metabolism is implicated in several disease states.
      He was awarded the John and Rita Cornforth Award of Royal Society of Chemistry in 2020 and the Queen's Anniversary Prize (to YSBL) in 2019 He was a Haworth Memorial Lectureship of Royal Society of Chemistry in 2018 and a Global Energy Award of Institution of Chemical Engineers winner in 2016.


      Personal life


      Davies married Valérie Marie-Andrée Ducros in 1999 (div. 2021) and has two daughters.


      References

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