Melanie Davies CBE, MB, ChB, MD, FRCP, FRCGP

Professor Melanie Davies is the Director of the Leicester NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Director of the Patient Recruitment Centre Leicester, and a Professor in Diabetes Medicine. She has published over 550 original articles and has over £60m of grant funding. She was awarded a CBE in the 2016 New Year’s Honour’s List for services to diabetes research.

Professor Davies’ research interests include the causes, screening, prevention, self-management and treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus. She is the Principal Investigator on a number of large global studies in the field of diabetes, obesity, physical activity, sedentary behavior, and cardiovascular disease.

The COVID-19 pandemic particularly impacts people with cardiometabolic multimorbidity – those patients who have two or more of heart disease, stroke, or diabetes. There is a higher risk still for people with type 2 diabetes and obesity who are from BAME groups.

The University of Leicester and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre have world-leading experts in respiratory disease and cardiometabolic conditions and a strong link to the NIHR’s Applied Research Centre East Midlands, based at Leicester Glenfield Hospital, which leads the multimorbidity research across England and hosts the Centre for BME Health.