Ryan S. Gray, Ph.D.

Ryan S. Gray, Ph.D., is an associate professor of the Department of Pediatrics. He also serves as adjunct faculty in the Department of Nutritional Sciences in The University of Texas at Austin College of Natural Sciences.

Gray oversees a basic research lab focused on the study of musculoskeletal disease, in particular for scoliosis. He uses mouse and zebrafish model systems, merging modern molecular genetics with diverse imaging approaches to elucidate the pathogenesis of musculoskeletal disease. Gray is particularly interested in a condition known as adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, which is a complex curvature of the spine that occurs during adolescence in otherwise healthy children.

Gray received a doctorate in cellular and molecular biology from The University of Texas at Austin. He completed postdoctoral training at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where he received numerous grant awards in support of his work on scoliosis. The Gray Lab uses a multitiered approach, combining zebrafish, mouse and cell culture models, informed by human genomics, with the goal to inform the diagnosis of musculoskeletal diseases including scoliosis and osteoarthritis and provide pathways for the therapeutic intervention of these disorders in humans.