MMI’s Kim Davis Promoted to Associate Professor

Kimberly Davis, PhD, MSc, a faculty member in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology has been promoted to Associate Professor. 

Davis studies how members of a bacterial population change during infection, in response to the host immune response, to identify strategies to more effectively combat infections.  Her lab utilizes both Yersinia and Staphylococcus aureus infection models to understand how bacteria adapt to antibiotic treatments, the role of immune cells in promoting clearance of bacterial infection, and how additional antibiotics or modulation of the host immune response can improve treatment efficacy.

Born and raised outside Cincinnati, Ohio, Davis earned a PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in the lab of Dr. Jeffrey Weiser. She conducted her postdoctoral study in the lab of Dr. Ralph Isberg at Tufts University School of Medicine, where she first began studying Yersinia and heterogeneity within bacterial populations. Her 2015 Cell Host and Microbe paper showing heterogeneity in virulence factor expression provided the basis for recently published work describing new tools to detect differences in bacterial growth rates during infection, and her current work focused on antibiotic treatment efficacy.

Davis has published over 30 research articles and reviews in journals including Cell Host and Microbe, Journal of Clinical Investigation, PLoS Pathogens, and Nature Medicine.