Biography
Professor Robert A. Harris
Professor Robert A. Harris (Bob) was born in Harpenden in Southern UK in 1966. He conducted a Bsc.Hons undergraduate degree at Portsmouth Polytechnic, majoring in Parasitology in 1987. PhD studies at University College London studying innate immune agglutinins in Schistosoma host snail species with Terry Preston and Vaughan Southgate as supervisors culminated with a thesis defence in early 1991. A 2.5 year postdoc at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in Paul Kaye’s research group ensued, with focus on understanding the intracellular fate of Leishmania spp. protozoans in macrophages. Bob was awarded a Wellcome Trust postdoctoral fellowship that permitted his relocation to the Karolinska Institutet (Stockholm, Sweden) in the spring of 1994. A postdoc period was spent split between the labs of Anders Örn and Tomas Olsson, in which he studied Trypanosoma cruzi and Trypanosoma bruceii protozoan proteins. Bob became an Associate Professor at the Karolinska Institutet in 1999, heralding his establishment as a PI. Bob started to work with autoimmune diseases in 1996 and began study of therapy using live parasite infections or parasite molecules. His research group has developed autoantigen-specific vaccines, defined the effects of post-translational biochemical molecules on autoantigenicity and developed a macrophage adoptive transfer therapy that prevents pathogenesis in several experimental disease models. He became Professor of Immunotherapy in Neurological Diseases in 2013. In recent years research focus has centred on understanding the immunopathogenesis of incurable neurodegenerative diseases, with particular emphasis on development of immunotherapies directed at microglial cells as potential therapeutic paradigms.
Bob Harris CV July 2020
ERIK HERLENIUS GROUP
Development of autonomic control
About
Immature or deficient autonomic control is a common problem in infants born at a premature age and is of central importance in apneas, secondary hypoxic brain damage and sudden infant death syndrome.
PER ERIKSSON GROUP
Research
For better understanding of disturbances in respiratory control we study early development of cardiorespiratory control, brainstem neural networks and its associations with normal and pathological breathing. The conceptual change introduced by our recent data that endogenous prostaglandins are central pathogenic factors in respiratory disorders and the hypoxic response, open new diagnostic and therapeutic avenues that should significantly better the diagnostics and treatment of newborns and adult patients.
Inflammation is a major culprit in breathing disorders and we hypothesize that by using a newly developed urinary prostaglandin biomarker we can screen, detect and protect against inflammation related breathing disorders.
Our collaborative efforts enable us to move from a clinical problem to molecular understanding of the disease and studies are performed in patients, animal & in vitro models.
Our research is focused on the development of autonomic control with normal and paediatric patients as the target. Autonomic dysfunction in breathing and circulatory control often has its origin in neurodevelopment disorders. Furthermore, our basic research in developmental neuroscience how neural activity and stem cells form activity dependent networks is vital for the development of therapeutic interventions.
Read more
Contact: communication@cmm.se
CENTER FOR MOLECULAR MEDICINE
Calendar
Upcoming Events
Tuesday 26 September
14:00 - 15:00
Spatial Biology Seminar
(external)
CMMers Eduardo Villablanca and Francisca Castillo invite you to this external event. Eduardo Villablanca is the scientific advisor of the CMM Cell Observatory Core Facility at CMM, where spatial biology can be studied using several of the instruments.
Wednesday 27 September
14:30
Mini Symposium
(external)
CMMers Ljubica Matic and Melody Chemaly invite you to this external event.
Friday 29 September
09:00
Dissertation
Thomas Moridi
Welcome to Thomas Moridi's Ppublic PhD thesis defense on September 29' at 09:00 in the CMM Lecture Hall, Center for Molecular Medicine, floor 00, Visionsgatan 18, L8, 171 76 Solna
Title: Genetic, magnetic resonance imaging and body fluid biomarker associations with severity of multiple sclerosis.
Speaker: Thomas Moridi
Principal Supervisor
Ingrid Kockum, Karolinska Institutet, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Division of Neuro
Co-supervisors
Pernilla Stridh, Karolinska Institutet, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Division of Neuro
Ali Manouchehrinia, Karolinska Institutet, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Division of Neuro
Fredrik Piehl, Karolinska Institutet, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Division of Neuro
Tobias Granberg, Karolinska Institutet, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Division of Neuro
Opponent
Mauro D'Amato, Free Mediterranean University (LUM), Department of Medicine and Surgery
Examination Board
Catharina Lavebratt, Karolinska Institutet, Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Division of Translational Psychiatry
Åsa Johansson, Uppsala University, Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, Division of Genomics and Neurobiology
Johan Virhammar, Uppsala University, Department of Medical Sciences, Division of Neurology
Location
CMM Lecture Hall, Center for Molecular Medicine, floor 00, Visionsgatan 18, L8, 171 76 Solna
3 October
Junior Faculty & Equity Groups
Seminar
(external)
CMMer Lina Diaz invites you to this external event.
16 - 17 November
Cardiovascular Research Retreat
(external)
CMMer Anton Gisterå invites you to this external event.
