MGA News January 1999

In his eleven years there, he has led a unit which has become the leading clinical centre for the treatment of MG in this country, and arguably in Europe, and has changed for the better the lives of thousands of MG patients from all over the world, and which has also made some amazing advances in fundamental research, leading to the real possibility, for the first time, of specific treatment, rather than blunderbuss suppression of the whole immune system.

Professor Newsom Davis studied medicine at Cambridge and at The Middlesex Hospital Medical School, having previously been a jet fighter pilot during his National Service. After qualifying, he held junior posts at various hospitals in London, before his appointment as consultant neurologist at the Royal Free Hospital. Here, he became interested in the problem of MG and related diseases. There was already at the Royal Free, considerable clinical involvement in the disease, and Prof. Newsom Davis's previous research on the muscles of breathing no doubt also helped to lead to his interesting himself in the problem. He quickly obtained the funding to establish a small research unit there, and this soon bore fruit in the shape of a paper demonstrating that patients with MG had antibodies to their own muscle motor end-plates, confirming what had previously been suspected, that MG was a disease of the immune system.

This work led to his appointment to the staff of the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases in London. Here, as well as continuing research, there was further refinement of the treatment of MG. Many doctors had tried suppressing the immune system with steriods, usually with disappointing results. Prof. Newsom Davis and his team used plasma exchange to tide patients over the first difficult months until the immune suppression really began to work.

At Oxford, he established superb research and clinical teams which have continued to make important advances, which led to world-wide recognition, and to Prof. Newsom Davis being honoured by his election to the fellowship of The Royal Society - a rare honour for a practising clinical doctor.

The good news for all of us is that the research and clinical units will continue to exist after his retirement, and, even better, that Prof. Newsom Davis will continue the MG Clinic for several years. We all thank him for all his work on our behalf, and wish him well in his retirement.

MGA NEWS January 1999

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