After working at the Sugarcane Research Station in Punjab and Coconut Research Station in Kerala, in 1960 Davis joined the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta. After a period as an FAO coconut agronomist in Indonesia Davis returned to India where he became Director of the J.B.S. Haldane Research Centre in Tamil Nadu.
Began his career as a chemist, but qualified as a doctor in 1944. His clinical studies were interrupted several times by the Second World War: he went to France with the British expeditionary force in 1939, and participated in the retreat to Dunkirk. For his work as a dispatch rider he was mentioned in dispatches. Later he spent two years in Bermuda and was promoted to captain in the intelligence corps. In 1945 Dent was a member of the medical team involved in the investigation and treatment of survivors of the Belsen concentration camp. The rest of his professional career was spent at University College Hospital medical school; he was appointed reader in medicine in 1951 and professor of human metabolism in 1956.
Ferguson was based at Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd Jealott's Hill Research Station, Bracknell, Berkshire.