Dr Felicity Davis
Dr Felicity Davis is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Career Development Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at Mater Research. Felicity heads the new Breast Physiology and Cancer Group. She has authored 20 research articles and reviews including first or senior author manuscripts in Nature Communications, PNAS, Oncogene, Trends in Cell Biology and Trends in Pharmacological Sciences.
The Breast Physiology and Cancer Group proposes that the key to unlocking the mysteries of breast cancer lies in our understanding of normal breast development, homeostasis and remodelling. The group seeks to understand the cellular hierarchy in the breast and the signalling pathways that regulate adult stem cells. Mammary stem and progenitor cells are believed to be the cell-of-origin of some breast cancers, and are linked to breast cancer heterogeneity and treatment resistance. Thus, a greater understanding of the molecular and phenotypic profiles of these cells will have important implications for the treatment and prevention of breast cancer.
Felicity also studies the unique capacity of the breast to sustain multiple cycles of pregnancy and lactation. Her work in this field has redefined the process of milk ejection, demonstrating that milk is pumped out of the breast by way of asynchronous, Ca2+-dependent, pulsatile contractions of millions of milk-producing structures. At the end of lactation the mammary gland activates an enormous, coordinated cell death program, to return this organ to a near pre-pregnant state. Felicity hopes that by studying the processes that regulate these “life and death” decisions in the mammary gland under physiological conditions, she will provide brand new avenues for the therapeutic targeting of breast cancer.
Felicity completed her PhD at the University of Queensland in 2012, before performing postdoctoral research at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS/NIH, USA, 2012-14) and the University of Cambridge (UK, 2014-16). In 2016 she returned to Australia to head the Breast Physiology and Cancer Group. She is pharmacist, State Representative for the Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists (ASCEPT) and Homerton College Alumna (Cambridge). She has been awarded almost A$1.5 million in competitive funding as lead investigator (CI-A) and has won over 20 awards, including the ASCEPT Denis Wade J&J Young Investigator Award, Martin Rodbell Award (NIEHS/NIH) and University Medal (UQ). She is a passionate advocate for women in science.
Research Programs and Groups
Research Interests
- Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences not elsewhere classified - Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences
- Cancer Cell Biology - Oncology and Carcinogenesis