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.
Cardiovascular Genetics and Genomics
Read more
Contact: communication@cmm.se
CENTER FOR MOLECULAR MEDICINE
Calendar
Upcoming Events
Wednesday 18 May
12:00 - 13:00
CMM
Extra Seminar
Title: RNA modifications in Cardiovascular Health and Disease
Speaker: Professor Konstantinos Stellos, University of Heidelberg
Host: Sven-Christian Pawelzik
Venue: CMM Lecture Hall
Thursday 19 May
13:00
Dissertation
Oscar Plunde
Title: Pathways linking atherosclerosis to aortic stenosis
Speaker: Oscar Plunde
Principal supervisor:
Professor Magnus Bäck
Karolinska Institutet , Department of Medicine, Solna , Unit of Cardiovascular Medicine.
Opponent:
Professor Konstantinos Stellos
University of Heidelberg , Department of Cardiovascular Research.
Examination Board:
Professor Thomas Kahan
Karolinska Institutet, Department of Clinical Sciences, Danderyd Hospital.
Docent Pontus Andell
Karolinska Institutet , Department of Medicine.
Professor Gustav Smith
Gothenburg University, Department of Molecular and Clinical Medicine.
Co supervisor: Professor Anders Franco-Cereceda
Karolinska Institutet, Department of Molecular Medicine, Cardiothoracic Surgery Unit.
Venue: Campus FlemingsbergZoom - Erna Möller i NEO, Huddinge
Thursday 19 May
12:00 - 13:00
CMM Seminar
Welcome to CMM Lecture Hall (L8:00 024). Lunch sandwiches will be offered from 12.00 on a first come-first served basis.
Title: The left-right side-specific endocrine signaling in effects of brain lesions: opposing the neurological dogma
Speaker: Georgy Bakalkin, Professor, Uppsala Universitet, Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences Research; Neuropharmacology and biological addiction research
Host: Tomas Ekström
Wednesday 25 May
09:00
Dissertation
Panagiota Tsitsi
Title: Studies on eye movements in Parkinson’s Disease
Speaker: Panagiota Tsitsi
Principal Supervisor
Professor Per Svenningsson, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet
Co-supervisors
Dr Ioanna Markaki, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet
Dr Anders Johansson, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet
Professor Maciej Machaczka, Department of Clinical Science and Education, Karolinska Institutet and Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Rzeszow
Docent Daniel Lundqvist, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet
Opponent
Professor Jan Kassubek, Department of Neurology, University of Ulm
Examination Board
Professor Miia Kivipelto, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet
Docent Tony Pansell, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet
Docent Cleanthe Spanaki, Faculty of Medicine, University of Crete
Venue: CMM Lecture Hall, Visionsgatan 18, ground floor, Karolinska Universitetssjukhuset Solna, L8:00
Thursday 2 June
15:00
CMM
Extra Seminar
Title: Knowledge-based analysis of spatial and multi-omic data to understand disease
Speaker: Julio Saez-Rodriguez, Heidelberg university
Host: Eduardo Villablanca
Venue: CMM Lecture Hall
Thursday 9 June
12:00 - 13:00
CMM Seminar
Welcome to CMM Lecture Hall (L8:00 024). Lunch sandwiches will be offered from 12.00 on a first come-first served basis.
Title: TBD
Speaker: Samir El Andaloussi, Karolinska Institutet, Department of Laboratory Medicine
Thursday 16 June
12:00 - 13:00
CMM Seminar
Welcome to CMM Lecture Hall (L8:00 024). Lunch sandwiches will be offered from 12.00 on a first come-first served basis.
Title: TBD
Speaker: Camilla Svensson, Karolinska Institutet, FyFa CMM