SAN ANTONIO (July 23, 2024) — Throughout his 23-year career, Stanton Gray, D.V.M., Ph.D., DACLAM, has sought to improve animal and human health as a veterinarian, colony manager and researcher. Combining both animal care and independent research is often a challenge. Each role requires high levels of dedication, time and energy, and it is rare to find job structures that provide support and protected time for both.
He has found his sweet spot at Texas Biomed and Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC), where he will dedicate one-third of his time to research and two-thirds to managing the center’s three breeding colonies of baboons, rhesus macaques and marmosets.
Colony Administrator and Associate Professor Stanton Gray, D.V.M., Ph.D., DACLAM
“This is what I’ve been working towards and hoping for,” says Dr. Gray, who recently began as both Associate Professor and Colony Administrator. “I am thankful I didn’t have to choose one path or the other.”
Dr. Gray’s expertise lies in working with pedigreed nonhuman primate colonies that have been carefully studied over generations. He uses detailed genetic information to investigate how genetic variation influences diseases like obesity and cancer. Teasing apart genetic factors from environmental influences or epigenetics – changes to the genome that occur throughout life – is difficult. But with nonhuman primates, it becomes possible
to get answers that benefit both animals and humans.
“Pedigreed nonhuman primate colonies have this unique ability to answer questions about complex genetic diseases,” he says. “They can answer questions about how genetics contribute to disease risk in ways that you can’t easily answer with human studies.”
“Pedigreed nonhuman primate colonies have this unique ability to answer questions about complex genetic diseases. They can answer questions about how genetics contribute to disease risk in ways that you can’t easily answer with human studies.”
Dr. GRAY
Growing up in Oklahoma City, Dr. Gray had considered attending “human medical school,” but at the encouragement of a friend, checked out veterinary medicine. He worked for a local small animal vet who cared for pets, strays and wildlife, so he built up diverse experience in animal care quickly. He studied zoology and population genetics at the University of Oklahoma and veterinary medicine at Oklahoma State University. After a few years working in private practice in California and Oregon, he decided to go back into research.
“I had the fire in my belly to do research,” he says. “I really enjoy the creativity to pose questions that have not been answered and work towards a better understanding.”
He completed his lab animal medicine residency and a Ph.D. in molecular pathology at Wake Forest University. He served as staff veterinarian at Wake Forest University and then Assistant Director at the Oregon National Primate Research Center. For the last 10 years, he managed a colony of 1,000 rhesus macaques at the Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He also researched conditions that affect both humans and macaques, including colon cancer, Lynch Syndrome, chronic colitis and Chagas disease.
Specifically, he and collaborators Eduardo Vilar-Sanchez, M.D., Ph.D., at MD Anderson and Jeff Rogers, Ph.D., at Baylor School of Medicine, are developing an anti-cancer vaccine that could help reduce colon cancer risk for people with Lynch syndrome. Lynch syndrome is a genetic disease that significantly increases the risk of many types of cancer, especially colon cancer. It involves mutations in “mismatch repair genes,” which normally repair mistakes that occur during DNA replication. The mutations result in non-functional proteins that inhibit this repair function and this is connected with cancers developing at earlier ages.
“Instead of getting colonoscopies in your 40s, if you have Lynch syndrome, you are getting colonoscopies in your 20s,” Dr. Gray says.
Colon cancer is also the most common form of cancer in rhesus macaques. Dr. Gray is seeking to understand if mutations in mismatch repair genes in macaques cause colon cancer through the same or similar pathways as people. If so, rhesus macaques would make excellent models for studying the disease and potential interventions for both humans and animals.
“There seems to be an epigenetic inactivation of the mismatch repair genes. And is that a universal pathogenesis for colon cancer? It seems to be a universal mechanism, but we don’t know for sure,” he says.
He is also studying a common problem that occurs in rhesus macaque colonies: colitis, more commonly known as diarrhea. Understanding and addressing this would be extremely beneficial, especially considering that rhesus macaques make up the majority of nonhuman primates in biomedical research.
“It is such a common problem that clarifying what is going on and developing solutions could have an enormous impact on the overall health of rhesus colonies everywhere,” Dr. Gray says.
Part of the work involves investigating a bacteria called Campylobacter, which is the most common culprit causing diarrhea in people in the U.S. and elsewhere. Dr. Gray is interested in working with others to develop a vaccine to protect against the bacteria for both animals and people.
“Developing a vaccine for Campylobacter is something that has worldwide implications for human and animal health,” Dr. Gray says.