On a recent Wednesday afternoon, USC professor Kelvin J. A. Davies stepped away from his research on oxidative stress in cells to talk about what drives him to succeed.

It turns out there is much more to life for the London-born scientist than cellular apoptosis.

Davies, the James E. Birren Professor of Gerontology at the USC Davis School of Gerontology and professor of molecular and computational biology at USC College, has several manuscripts in the works, is an avid sailor and a classical music and opera lover. He reads a book a week and somehow found time to be the official team photographer when his sons played varsity football.

Davies’ discussion, held at the Ground Zero Coffee House and jointly hosted by the USC Office of Religious Life along with several other student organizations, was part of the “What Matters to Me and Why” lecture series, which features USC faculty and administrators reflecting on their values, beliefs and motivations.

Davies’ academic career led him from Liverpool and Lancaster universities in the United Kingdom to graduate programs at the University of Wisconsin, the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard.

Currently in his third stint at USC, Davies came to prominence as a Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley almost 30 years ago.

While trying to understand how cells make energy, he discovered that moderate levels of free radicals, generated during exercise training, act as signals for cellular exercise adaptation. In contrast, high levels of the same (oxygen) radicals generated in extreme or exhaustive exercise can cause tissue damage.

Earlier this year, Davies was named a presidential lecturer at the American College of Sports Medicine.

“I always loved sports, especially cricket,” he said. “If you haven’t played, you haven’t lived.”

Exercise physiology was a natural fit for Davies, who considered medical school until he made an important self-discovery while working in a hospital.

“I realized I don’t like being around sick people,” he confessed.

Instead, he finds a constant source of inspiration in his wife of 27 years, Joanna Davies, an internist and specialist in rheumatology and osteoporosis at L.A.'s Good Samaritan Hospital and an adjunct associate professor at the USC Davis School.

“Somehow, while combining cutting-edge medical technology with deep compassion and caring, she manages to give lectures to our gerontology students and to serve as president of Trojan Affiliates, one of USC’s premier fund-raising and scholarship organizations,” said (Kelvin) Davies.

“It took me a while to convince this brilliant, talented and beautiful woman to marry me,” he said, “but my goodness what a wonderful life we are having together.”

Although he has always maintained an interest in exercise science, Davies shifted the focus of his work to four major areas: how mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cell, generate free radicals and survive their effects; how cells deal with oxidized proteins produced when (mitochondrial) free radicals react with and modify normal cellular proteins; the discovery of new genes that protect cells against free radicals and oxidative stress; and how aging diminishes our ability to protect against, and adapt to, oxidative stress.

The four areas have formed the crux of his research for the past 25 years.

In the 1980s, Davies coined the term “The Oxygen Paradox” to describe the conundrum that humans require oxygen to make cellular energy, yet the very process of using oxygen to produce energy generates dangerous free radicals and creates oxidative stress.

In 2006, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Society for Free Radical Biology & Medicine for his major scientific contributions to the field.

“You know you’re getting old when they start giving you lifetime achievement awards,” he quipped.

Davies spoke of the joys of being a University Professor, a position he would not give up for anything.

“To wake up in the morning and discover something for the first time in human history is an incredible feeling,” he said. “In my labs, we have found eight genes that nobody knew existed.”

Davies is particularly proud of the honorary doctoral degrees he has received from such institutions as the University of Moscow (Russia), Moscow State Medical University, Gdansk University (Poland) and the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina).

He has also been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Oxygen Society and the Gerontological Society of America.

“My greatest successes, however,” Davies said, “are my two sons, Sebastian (a senior at the University of Hawaii) and Alexander (a sophomore at USC). You can say all you like about academic success or personal rewards, but I can’t imagine any greater pride or love than that I feel for Sebastian and Alexander.”

As a professor of science, he enjoys balancing the responsibilities of managing a lab and teaching, always remembering to learn from his students.

“It’s a tremendous academic freedom knowing that if one day I decide I no longer want to study mitochondrial electron transport, I can switch to any other aspect of biology or medicine,” he said.

Davies also serves as editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed publication Free Radical Biology and Medicine, the premier journal in the free radical field, and currently sits on the editorial board of six other academic journals. He has held titles as diverse as associate dean for research, youth club director and director of the San Marino High School Football Booster’s Club.

“One of my favorites is ‘president emeritus,’ ” he joked, referring to his more relaxed role with the California Philharmonic Orchestra, an organization he helped found 10 years ago. “It’s one of the things I’m most proud of. My father gave me a love of opera and classical music, and I know that he would have been a big CalPhil fan.”

Through it all, Davies has been driven by three guiding principles: justice, humanity and a passion for learning. Still, he admitted, “I could never decide what I should do in life, and I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.”

That’s OK, he said, because working at a college is the perfect place to stay young, even for someone who studies aging.