Kerrie Davies
- Areas of expertise
- Kerrie Davies is a clinical scientist with extensive expertise in the diagnosis of healthcare associated infections. She brings direct experience of healthcare to the team ensuring the developed technology is implementable in the clinic.
- Location
- UK: University of Leeds
Dr Kerrie Davies, MBE, FRCPath (res), FESCMID, HFAHCS, is a Consultant Clinical Scientist and Head of the HCAI research Group Laboratory. She was the Deputy Lead for Infection on the NIHR Leeds MedTech Invitro Diagnostics Cooperative (MIC), and is currently Co-lead for the Early Diagnosis and Personalised Care theme of the HealthTech Research Centre, and Deputy theme lead of the Infection and AMR theme of the NIHR Leeds Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), within the Healthcare Infections Research Group at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. She is Honorary Associate Professor of diagnostics for infectious disease at University of Leeds; Co-chair Empower Leeds Women, and Chair for the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease study group committee for C. difficile. During the pandemic she was seconded first into DHSC, and then UKHSA, to lead on validating COVID-19 diagnostic assays, then contributed to writing and setting up, then operationalising, new regulatory legislation (Coronavirus Test Device Approval 2021) for COVID-19 test devices, and recently was Senior Scientific Advisor in the Office of the CSO NHSE, advising on AMR diagnostics.
Kerrie has been researching in vitro diagnostics for >20 years, both nationally and internationally, including defining the optimal C. difficile testing algorithm which was adopted in the UK and recommended in European, American, and Australasian testing guidelines. She has a passion for the impact of research on patients and healthcare, and in particular supporting Healthcare Scientists in research careers and was awarded CSO Healthcare Scientist of the year in 2021 for her work on COVID-19 diagnostics, and an MBE for services to Healthcare Science in 2025.
She is one half of the Small Faeces, a scientific singing duo, with Dr Jane Freeman. She does her best work while drinking tea and eating cake. @kerrieanndavies @hcaiLeeds
Within ACROPATH, Kerrie contributes expertise in infectious disease diagnostics, microbiology, and clinical epidemiology.
Selected publications / projects:
- Lead Scientist for UK national validation of SARS-CoV-2 assays within the Technologies Validation Group (DHSC/UKHSA).
- Lead scientist for UK national studies comparing Clostridium difficile toxin detection methods and diagnostic platforms, contributing to UK, European (ESCMID), and US (IDSA/SHEA) diagnostic guideline development for CDI.
- Scientific lead and coordinator for the EUCLID, LuCID, ORCHID, and COMBACTE-CDI studies on European CDI surveillance and diagnostics.