Nancy R. Cox, D.V.M., Ph.D. Dr. Nancy R. Cox received her BS (1971) and DVM (1972) degrees from Texas A&M University. She interned at the Small Animal Clinic at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Auburn University, receiving her MS degree in 1975. Dr. Cox was a small animal practitioner in Greenville, South Carolina, before joining the faculty of the Department of Comparative Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), as a clinical laboratory animal veterinarian. She served as Director of the Experimental Animal Resources Program (1978-80) prior to entering a PHS-supported pathology training program jointly administered by UAB and Auburn University. Dr. Cox was named a Fellow, Infectious Disease Training Grant at UAB, in 1984 and received her PhD in Experimental Pathology (1987) from UAB. Dr. Cox joined the SRRC faculty in 1985 as a neuropathologist. She served from 1996-98 as the Interim Director of the Institute for Biological Detection Systems (now the Canine Detection and Research Institute.) She currently is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pathobiology and serves as the Interim Director of the SRRC. Her current research focuses on 1) gene and cellular therapies for inherited diseases affecting the central nervous system of cats (particularly lysosomal storage diseases) and 2) targeted anti-cancer therapies.
334-844-5951 coxnanc@vetmed.auburn.edu
Research Interests Dr. Cox is a veterinary neuropathologist studying the pathologic changes in diseases of the central nervous system of cats and dogs. She participates in a research group at the Center to identify and characterize genetic abnormalities of cats that result in progressive neurologic diseases, usually due to malfunctioning lysosomal enzymes. These diseases in the cat are almost identical models of similar diseases in human patients so that findings from research are not only important in veterinary medicine, but also may be helpful to better understand and to develop treatments for human patients. She is exploring the use of various methods such as gene therapy, phage and peptide targeting, and adult mesenchymal stem cell and neural stem cell therapies to deliver functional enzyme to affected cells or to alter affected cells so that normal enzyme can be produced by the cat’s own cells. A second area of research interest is in therapies against cancer. With Dr. Tatiana Samoylova and the research team, they are developing of personalized targeted anti-cancer therapies which result in the death of cancer cells, but not normal tissues. They have screened combinatorial libraries of proteins expressed on bacteriophage particles (phage) to select for phage bearing surface proteins that bind with high affinity to tumor cells, but not normal cells. Both the phage bearing the targeting peptide and the peptide itself have potential for the development of diagnostic and therapeutic reagents against cancer. To produce potent peptides with specific anti-cancer activity, we are working on construction of peptide molecules with two domains. One of the domains is a cell-targeting peptide (identified with phage display), which is designed to guide the whole molecule to the target (tumor) cell, allowing cell-specific receptor-mediated internalization. The second domain is a cationic cytotoxic peptide which, after internalization, is able to destroy mitochondrial membrane and cause cell apoptosis. While Dr. Cox’s recent work has focused on a type of brain tumor called glioma, similarly targeted therapies would be applicable to many tumor types. Dr. Cox has also been part of a research team led by Dr. Bruce Smith at the Center and Dr. David Curiel at the University of Alabama in Birmingham which is developing an adenovirus which targets to and is lethal for tumor cells but not for normal cells in the dog. Selected Publications Smith, BF, Curiel DT, Ternovoi VV, Borovjagin AV, Baker HJ, Cox N, and Siegal GP. Administration of a Conditionally Replicative Oncolytic Canine Adenovirus In Normal Dogs  Cancer Biotherapy & Radiopharmaceuticals. Vol. 21, No. 6, in press.  Martin D.R., Cox N.R., Morrison N.E., Kennamer D.M., Peck S.L., Dodson A.N., Gentry A.S., Griffin B., Rolsma M.D. and Baker H.J.. Mutation of the GM2 activator protein in a feline model of GM2 gangliosidosis. Acta Neuropathologica (Berlin) 2005 110(5):443-450. Epub 2005 Oct 1. Samoylova TI, Cox NR, Morrison NE, Globa LP, Romanov V, Baker HJ, Petrenko VA.  Phage matrix for isolation of glioma cell-membrane proteins.  BioTechniques, 37(2): 254-260, 2004.     Mount J, Samoylova T, Morrison N, Cox N, Baker H, Petrenko V.  Cell targeted phagemid rescued by pre-selected landscape phage.  Gene 41:59-65, 2004. Samoylova TI, Petrenko VA, Morrison NE, Globa LP, Baker HJ, Cox NR.  Phage Probes for molecular profiling of malignant glial cells.  Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, 2(11): 1129-1137, 2003. Smith BF, Migone FK*, Cox NR and Baker HJ.  An in utero allotransplantation model of metastatic breast cancer in the cat.  In Vivo 17:35-40, 2003.       Martin DR, Cox NR, Hathcock TL, Niemeyer GP and Baker, HJ.  Isolation and characterization of multipotential mesenchymal stem cells from feline bone marrow.  Experimental Hematology 30: 879-886,  2002. Samoylova TI, Cox NR, Ahmed BY, Morrison NE, Samoylov AM, Smith BF, Globa LP, Baker and HJ. Peptide ligands for targeted delivery to brain. Molecular Therapy, 3(5):35,  2001. Cox NR, Morrison NE, Sartin J, Buonomo F, Steele B, Baker HJ.  Alterations in the GH/IGF-I pathways in feline GM1 gangliosidosis. Endocrinology, 140(12):5698‑704, 1999. Zhou J*, Cox NR, Ewald SJ, Morrison NE, Baker HJ.   Evaluation of GM1 ganglioside-mediated apoptosis in feline thymocytes.  Veterinary Immunology Immunopathology 66: 25‑42, 1998.