Daniel M. Davis was born on August 2nd, 1970 in London. He earned a BSc. in Physics from the University of Manchester in 1992 and PhD. in Physics in 1995, working with Prof. David Birch at Strathclyde University. As an Irvington Institute Postdoctoral Research Fellow, he studied molecular immunology with Prof. Jack Strominger in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University.

In December 1999 he returned to London as a Lecturer in the Department of Biology at Imperial College. His research there is currently supported by the Medical Research Council, The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and The Deaprtment of Trade and Industry. Principal scientific achievements to date are the first description of the Natural Killer cell immune synapse, which was also the first description of any immune synapse between living cells, the more recent description of cell surface proteins transferring between cells across immune synapses and the very recent observation of membrane nanotubes between immune cells. In October 2005 he became a Professor in Molecular Immunology at Imperial College. He is now Director of Research in the Manchester Collaborative Centre for Inflammation Research – a research institute funded by The University of Manchester, AstraZeneca and GSK.

He maintains a keen interest in public discussions of science, for example giving public lectures on the Natural Killer cell immune synapse at the Royal Institution (2000 and 2005), wininng the Oxford University Press/Times Higher Education Supplement Science Writing Prize (2000) and writing for Scientific American magazine (2006).