Meet the Team: Dr Chris Stanley

Meet Dr Chris Stanley, the leader of HRI's Microvascular Research Group. He is deeply passionate about discovery research and is currently investigating the role of inflammation in blood pressure-related disorders, with a focus on understanding low blood pressure seen in septic shock.

Dr Chris Stanley has always had a curious nature and a strong interest in science. Despite this, Chris took a very unconventional route into his scientific career.

Born in Yorkshire in the UK, he left school at 16 to work and play rugby union.

“I always loved science as a child. I was always dismantling stuff around the house - my mum’s vacuum, the video player or kitchen appliances - to see how they worked,” Chris recalls. “But as a teenager, I lost my love for science, and my love for everything really, apart from sport.

“With very average school grades I decided to leave at 16 to get a job. Initially, working on a farm I then ended up managing a leisure centre and becoming a personal trainer.”

It was during this period that Chris rediscovered his passion for science.

"I found myself buying book after book and going deeper and deeper. I went from sports science magazines to complex biochemistry journals, consistently amazed by the body and how it can be manipulated.”

Chris acknowledged he couldn’t be a personal trainer forever and realised he had developed an insatiable thirst for knowledge about the human body.

“It was also around this time that I started dating a girl who lived in Milan and was studying classical civilisations. Our discussions about university career paths inspired me to pursue an academic journey of my own. I thought, ‘I want to spend the rest of my life learning, being an academic,’ and my path was set.”

"I went in loving physiology, but as soon as we started talking about pharmacology and how drugs interact with the body, I just absolutely fell in love.”

Chris won multiple awards for his research project, including best dissertation and best lab project, and decided he would then go on to study medicine.

“My course leader actually said to me, ‘Chris, you wouldn't be a good doctor. There are people in this world who can handle lots of different information and distribute it – those are doctors. And then there are the people who just need to dig deep and understand something thoroughly and not in a time-sensitive way – and that’s you.’”

Heeding his lecturer’s advice, Chris completed a PhD at the University of Nottingham. He studied how human arteries contract and relax, with the aim of developing novel therapeutic tools to treat high blood pressure and vascular disorders associated with high cholesterol and diabetes – a mission he is still pursuing today at HRI.

He then successfully secured a postdoc appointment at the University of Oxford with two influential experts in vascular physiology, Prof Kim Dora and Prof Chris Garland. Chris’ project was once again focused on the impacts of disease on the structure and function of arteries.

“Kim and Chris are considered ‘gods’ in my field. Working and studying at Oxford was a great opportunity, the lab was amazing, and the science they do is phenomenal, so when the time came, I was naturally sad to leave the lab," he shares.

"But at the same time, there were far too many London accents kicking around for a lad from Yorkshire,” he laughs.

In 2014 when Chris stumbled upon a job ad to work in Prof Roland Stocker’s lab and the email address ended in ‘ac.au’, he assumed the position would be based in Austria. As he dialled in to the interview, it quickly became clear it was not.