Ronald Wayne "Ron" Davis (born July 17, 1941) is Professor of

Biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

Genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar work ...

, and Director of the Stanford Genome Technology Center at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

. Davis is a researcher in biotechnology and molecular genetics, particularly active in human and yeast genomics and the development of new technologies in genomics, with over 30 biotechnology

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

s. In 2013, it was said of Davis that "A substantial number of the major genetic advances of the past 20 years can be traced back to Davis in some way."

Scientific career

After completing his PhD at

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

and a postdoctoral fellowship at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

working with Jim Watson, Davis joined the faculty of

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. S ...

's Department of Biochemistry in 1972. He became an Associate Professor in 1980, full Professor in 1980, and joined the Department of Genetics as a professor in 1990. He became director of the Stanford Genome Technology Center in 1994. He was elected a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

in 1983. Davis developed the

R-loop An R-loop is a three-stranded nucleic acid structure, composed of a DNA: RNA hybrid and the associated non-template single-stranded DNA. R-loops may be formed in a variety of circumstances, and may be tolerated or cleared by cellular components. ...

technique of electron microscopy for mapping coding RNAs which led to the discovery of RNA splicing. With Janet E. Mertz, Davis was the first to demonstrate the use of

restriction endonuclease A restriction enzyme, restriction endonuclease, REase, ENase or'' restrictase '' is an enzyme that cleaves DNA into fragments at or near specific recognition sites within molecules known as restriction sites. Restriction enzymes are one class o ...

s for joining DNA fragments. Davis collaborated in the development of the first

DNA microarray A DNA microarray (also commonly known as DNA chip or biochip) is a collection of microscopic DNA spots attached to a solid surface. Scientists use DNA microarrays to measure the expression levels of large numbers of genes simultaneously or to ...

for

gene expression profiling In the field of molecular biology, gene expression profiling is the measurement of the activity (the expression) of thousands of genes at once, to create a global picture of cellular function. These profiles can, for example, distinguish between c ...

with

Patrick O. Brown Patrick O'Reilly Brown (born 1954) is an American scientist and businessman who is the chief executive and founder of Impossible Foods Inc. and professor emeritus in the department of biochemistry at Stanford University. Brown is co-founder of th ...

, and the gene expression profile of the first complete

eukaryotic Eukaryotes () are organisms whose cells have a nucleus. All animals, plants, fungi, and many unicellular organisms, are Eukaryotes. They belong to the group of organisms Eukaryota or Eukarya, which is one of the three domains of life. Bacte ...

genome (''

Saccharomyces cerevisiae ''Saccharomyces cerevisiae'' () (brewer's yeast or baker's yeast) is a species of yeast (single-celled fungus microorganisms). The species has been instrumental in winemaking, baking, and brewing since ancient times. It is believed to have b ...

''). Davis, with

David Botstein David Botstein (born September 8, 1942) is an American biologist serving as the chief scientific officer of Calico. He served as the director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University from 2003 to 2013, where ...

Mark Skolnick Mark Henry Skolnick (born January 28, 1946) is an American geneticist and the founder of Myriad Genetics Inc, an American molecular diagnostic company based in Salt Lake City, Utah. His highest cited paper is "Construction of a genetic linkage map ...

, and

Ray White Ray White (full name Ray Shirley White Sr) is an American soul vocalist and rock and blues guitarist, best known as a member of Frank Zappa's touring ensembles. He was drafted into Zappa's band in late 1976, being featured on rhythm gu ...

developed the method for constructing a

genetic linkage Genetic linkage is the tendency of DNA sequences that are close together on a chromosome to be inherited together during the meiosis phase of sexual reproduction. Two genetic markers that are physically near to each other are unlikely to be sep ...

map using restriction fragment length polymorphisms that enabled and led to the

Human Genome Project The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying, mapping and sequencing all of the genes of the human genome from both ...

. He and his colleagues submitted a proposal to

NIH The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

to map the human genome in 1979; that proposal was turned down as being too ambitious. The Stanford Genome Technology Center was included in the

that began in 1990 and was completed in 2003. In 2013, Davis founded the Stanford Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research Center (now called ME/CFS Collaborative Research Center).

Recognition and awards

In 2013 Davis was named, alongside Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, as one of today’s nine greatest innovators by ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'': "A substantial number of the major genetic advances of the past 20 years can be traced back to Davis in some way." He has won recognition for his contributions to genetic research from many groups, as early as 1976 and as recently as 2015, from one of his alumni colleges and from the

. Starting from his most recent award, here are awards and recognition Davis has received for his achievements in and contributions to science. In 2015, he received the Precision Medicine World Conference Luminary Award for his development of “R-loop Technique of Electron Microscopy”. In 2013, he received the

Warren Alpert Foundation Prize The Warren Alpert Foundation Prize is awarded annually to scientist(s) whose scientific achievements have led to the prevention, cure or treatment of human diseases or disorders, and/or whose research constitutes a seminal scientific finding that ho ...

. He received the

Gruber Prize in Genetics The Gruber Prize in Genetics, established in 2001, is one of three international awards worth US$500,000 made by the Gruber Foundation, a non-profit organization based at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The Genetics Prize honors leadi ...

in 2011, which noted among other achievements, two landmark papers, one in 1977 concerning genome editing and another in 1980 which "helped launch the field of genomics." In 2007,

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

gave him its Distinguished Alumni Award. In 2005, Davis received the

Dickson Prize in Medicine The Dickson Prize in Medicine and the Dickson Prize in Science were both established in 1969 by Joseph Z. Dickson and Agnes Fischer Dickson. Dickson Prize in Medicine The Dickson Prize in Medicine is awarded annually by the University of Pittsburg ...

. In 2004, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the

Genetics Society of America The Genetics Society of America (GSA) is a scholarly membership society of more than 5,500 genetics researchers and educators, established in 1931. The Society was formed from the reorganization of the Joint Genetics Sections of the American Soci ...

. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) gave him the 1982

NAS Award in Molecular Biology The NAS Award in Molecular Biology is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "for recent notable discovery in molecular biology by a young scientist who is a citizen of the United States." It has been awarded annually since its inception ...

. In 1976, he received the Eli Lilly Award in Microbiology and Immunology.

Open Medicine Foundation

Dr. Davis is the director of the Scientific Advisory Board at the

Open Medicine Foundation The Open Medicine Foundation (OMF) is a US-based charity that funds research into the illnesses myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia, post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, and long COVID. History The OMF ...

, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization (EIN# 26-4712664), whose goal is to fund and initiate research into chronic complex diseases. Presently the foundation is invested in The End ME/CFS Project, which aims to fast-track research for a cure for myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). In April 2019, a notable result was reported; a test of blood without red cells (white cells in plasma), identified ME/CFS patients from healthy people with 100% accuracy in a small sample, 20 patients and 20 healthy people. The test used a biotechnological device designed by Davis and his team, which is called the "nanoneedle". “The small device that Davis and his colleagues created was originally developed to detect changes in electrical signals when cancer cells were exposed to different treatments.”, as described in

Stat News STAT, Stat. , or stat may refer to: * Stat (system call), a Unix system call that returns file attributes of an inode * ''Stat'' (TV series), an American sitcom that aired in 1991 * Stat (website), a health-oriented news website * STAT protein, a ...

. it was used to test cells of ME/CFS patients, and in their first hypothesis, found it to be useful in distinguishing patients from healthy people. People with this disease are described as not using energy well and taking a long time to recover from energy expenditure; “the researchers decided to mimic this by stressing cells from 20 healthy controls and 20 ME/CFS patients by exposing them to increased levels of salt.” Rahim Esfandyarpour, lead author of the paper, said “When they ells from ME/CFS patientsface this new environment, their reaction is different than the reaction of healthy cells.” Davis’s research became more urgent and important after Dr.

Anthony Fauci Anthony Stephen Fauci (; born December 24, 1940) is an American physician-scientist and immunologist serving as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the chief medical advisor to the preside ...

warned that some

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...

survivors showed symptoms in line with those of ME/CFS. According to Fauci, "a considerable number" of

survivors struggle with extreme exhaustion, memory lapses, and cognitive difficulties many months after they have been officially cleared as recovered. Davis is part of a high-level interagency work and research group with the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georg ...

(CDC),

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the lat ...

, the

Veterans Administration The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing life-long healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers an ...

, and the

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philipp ...

looking at the long-term consequences of

and

Long COVID Long COVID or long-haul COVID (also known as post-COVID-19 syndrome, post-COVID-19 condition, post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), or chronic COVID syndrome (CCS)) is a condition characterized by long-term health problems persisting or app ...

Family

Davis married Janet Dafoe in July 1969. Their son, Whitney Dafoe was born in 1983, followed by their daughter Ashley Davis. Whitney Dafoe became ill with severe ME/CFS around 2009, declining from active and healthy in his career as a photographer to housebound, and by 2015 bed bound from this disease, unable to tolerate sounds and light, unable to do much at all, and eventually unable to eat, drink or speak. As his endurance decreased, Dafoe moved back home in May 2011. His mother cut her work as a clinical psychologist to five hours a week to spend full time on his daily care as he continued declining in function, while Davis continues his research career and helps with his son’s daily care. Dafoe’s need for treatment is the motivation for Davis to direct his medical and scientific research efforts toward this disease; he dropped all other projects in hand before his son became so ill.

References

External links