[3] He is currently working in understanding the mechanisms by which any mammalian gene is switched on and off during differentiation and development.

He joined the Molecular Haematology Unit of the Medical Research Council at Oxford in 1977.

[1][4] In 2012, Higgs was appointed director of the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine (WIMM).

[4][5] In 2020, Higgs was succeeded as director of the MRC MHU and WIMM by Ketan J.

[6] Higgs is a Senior Kurti Fellow at Brasenose College, Oxford.

[7] Gibbons, Richard J; Picketts, David J; Villard, Laurent; Higgs, Douglas R (1995).

"Mutations in a putative global transcriptional regulator cause X-linked mental retardation with α-thalassemia (ATR-X syndrome)".

"Transcription of antisense RNA leading to gene silencing and methylation as a novel cause of human genetic disease".

Wilkie, Andrew O. M.; Lamb, Janette; Harris, Peter C.; Finney, Roger D.; Higgs, Douglas R. (1990).

"A truncated human chromosome 16 associated with α thalassaemia is stabilized by addition of telomeric repeat (TTAGGG)n".

"Recombination at the human α-globin gene cluster: Sequence features and topological constraints".

De Gobbi, Marco; Viprakasit, Vip; Hughes, Jim R.; Fisher, Chris; Buckle, Veronica J.; Ayyub, Helena; Gibbons, Richard J.; Vernimmen, Douglas; Yoshinaga, Yuko (26 May 2006).

"A Regulatory SNP Causes a Human Genetic Disease by Creating a New Transcriptional Promoter".

"ATR-X Syndrome Protein Targets Tandem Repeats and Influences Allele-Specific Expression in a Size-Dependent Manner".

Hughes, Jim R; Roberts, Nigel; McGowan, Simon; Hay, Deborah; Giannoulatou, Eleni; Lynch, Magnus; De Gobbi, Marco; Taylor, Stephen; Gibbons, Richard (2014).

"Analysis of hundreds of cis-regulatory landscapes at high resolution in a single, high-throughput experiment".

Higgs, Douglas R.; Gibbons, Richard J.; McDowell, Tarra L.; Raman, Sundhya; O'Rourke, Delia M.; Garrick, David; Ayyub, Helena (2000).

"Mutations in ATRX, encoding a SWI/SNF-like protein, cause diverse changes in the pattern of DNA methylation".

Hay, Deborah; Hughes, Jim R; Babbs, Christian; Davies, James O J; Graham, Bryony J; Hanssen, Lars L P; Kassouf, Mira T; Oudelaar, A Marieke; Sharpe, Jacqueline A (2016).