David Davies
Davies is an associate professor of biology. Davies has found and is in the process of synthesizing a compound that will cause biofilm colonies to disperse, thus leaving individual bacteria up to 1,000 times more susceptible to disinfectants, antibiotics and immune functions. It's a discovery that will most certainly drive worldwide biofilm research in new directions and that could help put some of the most virulent cells in all of nature out of business.
The thing that most attracted me in coming to Binghamton was this openness and receptiveness to free thinking, and Binghamton, unlike any other school I've ever seen, promotes and insists on diversity in its faculty, which is kind of interesting, because that has created a culture of freedom that you don't see in science at other schools. There are pluses and minuses to this philosophy because there's not a lot of support. You're basically left on your own - you come here, you're on your own, baby. That's it. Now, that may sound like a criticism, but in my case that was also a big attractant, that no one was going to interfere with me if I wanted to go off in some crazy direction. That has created a certain intellectual freedom that is really enriching to the scientists, allowing us to explore in any direction we really wished to without constraint. And that's a real luxury. You don't see that in other schools.
