Rate My Professor William Gray

Professor William Gray is Professor of Functional Neurosurgery in the School of Medicine at Cardiff University and Honorary Consultant Neurosurgeon at the University Hospital of Wales. He serves as Director of the Health and Care Research Wales funded BRAIN Unit, focused on brain repair and intracranial neurotherapeutics, and Director of the Advanced Neurotherapies Centre (ANTC), a research centre dedicated to developing and delivering Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs) to the brain in early-phase clinical trials. His career encompasses clinical neurosurgery and translational neuroscience, with expertise in functional neurosurgery for epilepsy and neurodegenerative conditions. Gray leads research groups investigating neuroinflammatory responses to ATMP delivery, surgical devices for cell and gene therapy administration, and advanced MRI imaging to model therapy delivery. He co-leads the European Huntington’s Disease Network ATMP Working Group and chairs its Surgical Delivery Task Force.

Gray's research specializations include clinical studies in epilepsy, hippocampal function, learning, and memory, utilizing advanced imaging techniques such as intracranial EEG recordings, white matter fibre tractography, grey matter microstructure analysis, and fMRI to elucidate seizure origins and cognitive impairments in epilepsy patients. He employs human brain tissue and cerebrospinal fluid from epilepsy, tumour, and head injury surgeries for translational research, including 3D ex vivo culturing of human brain tissue to study brain function, disease mechanisms, and cell transplantation for repair. As a surgeon-neuroscientist, his work emphasizes brain repair through cell replacement using endogenous or transplanted neural precursor cells and cellular reprogramming via gene or RNA therapies. He is UK Chief Investigator for the uniQure AMT-130 gene therapy trial for Huntington’s disease and Principal Investigator for gene therapy trials in frontotemporal dementia (Aviadobio) and Parkinson’s disease (AskBio). Key publications include 'Translating cell therapies for neurodegenerative diseases' (Brain, 2022), 'Cell therapy for Huntington's disease: learning from failure' (Movement Disorders, 2021), 'Do foetal transplant studies continue to be justified in Huntington's disease?' (Neuronal Signaling, 2021), and contributions to epilepsy surgery outcomes and neuroimaging studies such as 'Predictive models for starting antiseizure medication withdrawal following epilepsy surgery in adults' (Brain, 2023). His contributions advance clinical translation of neurotherapeutics, influencing early-phase trials for neurodegenerative diseases.