Kevin Davies, Ph.D.
VP American Chemical Society; Author, The $1,000 Genome
Kevin Davies, Ph.D. is Vice President of Business Development in the Publications Division of the
American Chemical Society, the largest scientific society in the world. He has special responsibility for
the ACS’ new Open Access programs, including the forthcoming launch of a fully OA journal, ACS Central
Science. He also serves as Publisher of Chemical & Engineering News, the ACS’ weekly magazine.
The ACS marks Kevin’s third spell in academic scholarly publishing. He is the founding editor of Nature
Genetics, the world’s leading genetics research journal, and also served as Editor-in-Chief of Cell Press
in 2000-01, shortly after its acquisition by Elsevier.
Kevin is the author of three popular science books, most recently The $1,000 Genome – an exploration
of the revolution in DNA sequencing and personal genomics. His previous book Cracking the Genome was
translated into 15 languages. Kevin was also the launch editor for Bio-IT World, a trade magazine
covering big data in the life sciences.
Kevin Davies holds an M.A. in biochemistry from Oxford University and a Ph.D. in molecular genetics
from the University of London. He held postdoctoral fellowships at MIT and Harvard Medical School
before moving into science publishing.
Kevin’s first book, Breakthrough (co-authored with Michael White) told the story of the race for
the BRCA1 breast cancer gene, and resulted in Kevin serving as technical consultant on the forthcoming
film Decoding Annie Parker, starring Helen Hunt and Aaron Paul.