Honouring Earl W. Davie (1927-2020)

Earl W. Davie, Ph.D., professor emeritus of biochemistry at the University of Washington in Seattle, died in June 2020.

Over the course of Dr. Davie’s long and distinguished career, he made many discoveries that advanced understanding of how blood clots and led to the development of treatments for many bleeding disorders. His seminal discovery, with Dr. Oscar Ratnoff, was the waterfall sequence for blood clotting. Published in the journal Science in 1964, Drs. Davie and Ratnoff discovered the elegant pattern of activation and propagation of clotting factor signals that leads to clot formation. This paved the way for future discoveries, many of which were made by Dr. Davie or the numerous researchers trained in his laboratory, that improved our understanding of blood clotting and the mechanisms underlying bleeding disorders, and allowed for the development of effective treatments.

To honour this giant in coagulation research, the Centre for Blood Research at the University of British Columbia has been hosting an Earl W. Davie Symposium for many years. This year’s event, planned for November 17, 2020, will be the 14^th annual symposium and the first after Dr. Davie’s death. It is sure to be poignant. Despite his advanced years, Dr. Davie attended the symposium almost every year; sometimes speaking, but always listening, encouraging and engaging. It was clear his deep love for learning and teaching never waned and his presence was a highlight for all who attended.

• Learn more about Dr. Davie’s seminal work in the 2017 R.E.D. blog from  “Earl W. Davie Symposium - Eleven years and counting”.
• Read the Centre for Blood Research’s tribute to Dr. Davie here.
• Learn more about Dr. Davie’s career in this obituary in the Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis by the Centre for Innovation’s Dr. Ross T.A. MacGillivray and Dr. Edward M. Conway.
• Keep an eye and the Centre for Blood Research events page for details on the 2020 Earl W. Davie Symposium.

The Centre for Blood Research at the University of British Columbia hosts three Canadian Blood Services scientists and affiliated staff, postdoctoral fellows and students. Canadian Blood Services and the Centre for Innovation are proud to partner with the Centre for Blood Research to deliver training and education events including the annual Earl W. Davie Symposium.

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The opinions reflected in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Canadian Blood Services nor do they reflect the views of Health Canada or any other funding agency.