Professor Josh Davis

Prof Josh Davis - man with maroon scrubs on and stethoscope around neck smiling at camera
Project Grant
2017 Project Grant
Project Grant
2015 Project Grant
Project Grant
2014 Project Grant
Infection Research Program Lead  |  Pandemic Preparedness Theme Lead  |  Severe Bacterial Infections Theme Lead 

 

Profile

Professor Josh Davis is a clinician researcher at the John Hunter Hospital with a focus on infectious diseases. Awarded his PhD in 2011, Professor Davis is currently a Chief Investigator on four NHMRC Project Grants worth over $7 million and has five other competitive grants worth over $260,000.

He divides his time between his work as a senior clinician and developing leadership roles in the Australian Infectious Diseases Community. He is currently the elected President of the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases (ASID), played a key role in establishing ASID’s clinical research network, and is a selected member of the expert writing group of Therapeutic Guidelines: Antibiotic, Australia’s national antibiotic policy.

 

What are your research interests?

  • Clinical Trials in severe infectious diseases
  • Evidence gaps in clinical management of infectious diseases
  • Severe sepsis
  • Viral hepatitis
  • Aboriginal Health

 

Specialised/Technical Skills

  • Epidemiology
  • Infectious Diseases

 

 

2017

Plasma Torque Teno Virus load as a novel tool to monitor intensity of immunosuppression in renal transplant recipients
Project Grant
Researchers:
Description:

A key problem with kidney transplantation is the potential for the patient’s immune system to reject the kidney. Hence all transplant patients are given medications to suppress their immune systems. If their immune system is too suppressed, patients are at risk of severe infection; if it is not suppressed enough, they are at risk of rejecting the kidney. Our current methods for monitoring the degree of immune suppression are crude and episodes of both severe infection and organ rejection are common. There is currently no simple and practical blood test which quantifies how suppressed the immune system is. Such a blood test would allow us to get the doses of immunosuppressive drugs just right in each patient, using an individually tailored approach. 

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2015

MERINO2: A randomised controlled trial comparing two different antibiotics for blood stream infections caused by the 'ESCaPM' group of antibiotic resistant Gram negative bacteria
Project Grant
Researchers:

Dr Joshua Davis, Associate Professor Michael Boyle

Description:

Blood stream infection caused by bacteria known as ESCaPMs (an acronum standing for their names: Enterobacter, Serratia, Citrobacter, Providencia and Morganella) is common and promlematic, with over 45 cases at JHH annually. 

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2014

PIANO - Prosthetic Joint Infection in Australia and New Zealand Observational Study
Project Grant
Researchers:

Dr Joshua Davis, Mark Lowewnthal

Description:

Over 70,000 hip and knee replacements are performed in Australia each year. Unfortunately approximately 2% of these will become infected and there is a lack of high quality evidence to guide the management of these prosthetic joint infections (PJI). 

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