Assistant Veterinarian
Anna Goodroe, D.V.M., DACLAM, is the newest veterinarian to join the staff at the Southwest National Primate Research Center on the Texas Biomedical Research Institute campus. As an Assistant Veterinarian, she is part of the Veterinary Resources and Research Support team. In providing clinical support, she will conduct preventative health checks, disease surveillance, and treatment/management of health concerns. For research, Dr. Goodroe will consult with investigators regarding study design, animal selection, clinical procedures and study procedure completion. She will also look for opportunities to enhance clinical care, environments and nutrition for all of the animals.
Dr. Goodroe earned her biology degree from Texas A&M University. She had plans to become a marine mammal trainer and spent a year working for Disney and the U.S. Navy training dolphins and sea lions. However, a personal experience with an ill family member sparked her desire to use her knowledge to advance human health. Dr. Goodroe returned to A&M to earn a degree from the veterinary school. She completed her post-doctoral fellowship in Clinical Laboratory Animal Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. She then worked at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center before moving to the University of Houston.
“Working with large breeding colonies of research animals, that’s when I fell in love with primate medicine,” Goodroe said. “I embrace the mission of Texas Biomed to advance research using these animals to help come up with new interventions, diagnostics and cures. With the primate center, researchers are able to perform work that is on the cusp of being put into use in human medicine. That’s exciting.”
Dr. Goodroe is particularly fond of working with marmosets, small New World monkeys from South America used for research in areas from Alzheimer’s to Zika. Texas Biomed is merging its marmoset population with marmosets from UT Health San Antonio, creating the largest colony in the country dedicated to aging and infectious diseases on the Texas Biomed campus, housing more than 400 marmosets.
“Dr. Goodroe is a highly-skilled veterinarian with specific training in the use of nonhuman primates in research,” SNPRC Director and Professor Deepak Kaushal, Ph.D., said. “We believe that she fits well our team of veterinarians and she will serve our vet medicine and research needs at the SNPRC for a long time to come.”
Dr. Goodroe’s research on controlling pinworms in rodent vivaria and the role of gut microbiome on the immune system has been published in peer-reviewed publications the Journal of the American Association of Laboratory Animal Science and Mucosal Immunology. She is a member of the American Association of Primate Veterinarians, the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science and the American Society of Primatologists. She currently serves as the Education Subgroup Chair for the Marmoset Working group of the NPRC Consortium, a group of investigators, colony managers, animal technicians, behaviorists and veterinarians involved in biomedical research with marmosets.