Kevin Davies
Kevin Davies is the leader of the Plant Pigments Group of Crop & Food Research. The group studies many aspects of pigments in ornamentals, and fruit and vegetables, with an emphasis on the flavonoids.
One current focus is the control mechanisms for the transcription factors that regulate flavonoid production, with a view toward elucidating the control of flavonoid pigmentation in important fruit and vegetable crops. Another focus is the biosynthesis of some of the less common plant pigments, specifically 3-deoxyanthocyanins, aurones and betalains, where a range of unusual ‘Anthocyanic Vacuolar Inclusions’ have been identified.
The group also has interests in transgenic plants with modified flower and foliage pigmentation, the influence of the environment on pigmentation phenotypes, and plant cell culture technologies for producing extracted products for the food industries. A recent outcome has been the book Plant Pigments and their Manipulation (ed. KM Davies, Blackwell/CRC Press), which includes a number of chapters from group members and current or past collaborators.