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
HANNA BRAUNER TEAM
About
Our overall goal is to increase understanding of pathogenic mechanisms of lymphoma and autoimmunity, and factors controlling disease progression to improve diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of these patients. Our laboratory is strategically placed close to the Karolinska University hospital, enabling easy access of clinical samples. We use a broad array of laboratory techniques, including cellular immunology assays, spatial investigations and genetic studies of unique clinical material.
Our main research interest is to understand pathways governing development of systemic inflammatory diseases and lymphoma and the link between those two, since patients with autoimmune diseases run an increased risk of developing lymphoma and other cancers. We investigate possible immune mechanisms and tumor properties governing cancer development in patients with autoimmunity, including dermatomyositis and systemic lupus erythematosus.
In addition, we focus on cutaneous T cell lymphoma, which is a rare type of lymphoma primarily engaging the skin. The unique accessibility of this disease allows for easy access to the tumor and the possibility to follow the development of the lymphoma and anti-lymphoma immune responses over time. Most of the patients with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma get an indolent disease, but for largely unknown reasons around 10-15% percent develop aggressive disease with high fatality.
In these efforts our ultimate aims are to increase fundamental knowledge on the pathogenesis of cutaneous lymphoma and cancer in autoimmunity and aid earlier identification of patients at risk of aggressive disease.
To reach our goal have set up a strong collaborative team of researchers and clinicians in dermatology, hematology, rheumatology, oncology, pathology, immunology and epidemiology to take a broad approach. Our research originates in clinical questions and patient material paired with high level basic science experimental investigations.
The research is clearly translational, bridging from patients to basic science and hopefully back to the patients again, with the scientific questions always originating in the clinical disease.
Team leader
Hanna Brauner is principal investigator and associate professor at the Department of Medicine, Solna, Team Leader at the Centre for Molecular Medicine (CMM), and specialist in dermatology at the Dermatology clinic, Karolinska University hospital. She defended her thesis in 2010, at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell biology, Karolinska Institutet (KI), supervised by professors Petter Höglund and Klas Kärre. Her first postdoctoral training was with professor James Di Santo, the Pasteur Institute, in 2012-2013. Thereafter she did a second postdoctoral period with associate professor Lisa Westerberg, KI, in 2015-2017. In 2018 Hanna Brauner was awarded a young investigator award from the Swedish Society for Medical Research (SSMF) and was recruited to the Department of Medicine, Solna and CMM. She is responsible for patients with cutaneous lymphoma at the dermatology clinic, Karolinska University hospital, member of the group creating national treatment guidelines for cutaneous lymphoma and co-organizer for a Nordic network for cutaneous lymphoma.
Team members
Julia Nenonen, MD, PhD student
Hanh Thi My Long, MD, postdoctoral student
Mengmeng Xiang, MD, visiting PhD student
Lina Ivert, MD, clinical postdoctoral student
Ida Mazaheri Khameneh, medical student, exam work
Kajsa Enjin Jacobsson, medical student, exam work
Anna Winther, MD, project student
Team members alumni
Andrea Scheffschick, postdoc (now postdoctoral student, University of Leipzig, Germany)
Sina Fuchs, postdoc (now scientist, BioNTech, Mainz, Germany)
Sofi Vikström, MD, project student (now PhD student, department of Oncology and Pathology, KI)
Ellinor Leijonhufvud, MD, project student
Wilma Lindström, medical student, project student
Elena Björnbom, medical student, project student
Funding
Swedish Society for Medical Research (SSMF, young investigator award), the Swedish Cancer Society (clinical research months), Region Stockholm (clinical research appointment and ALF medicine), and Clas Groschinsky, Åke Wiberg, Magnus Bergvall, Welander’s, Karolinska Institutet and Rheumatology and Karolinska Institutet foundations (project grants, KID-grant, KIRI Fellow grant for interdisciplinary postdoc), Radiumhemmet research foundation, China Scholarship Council.
Contact
https://staff.ki.se/people/hanna-brauner
Interested in joining the team: We are always looking for highly motivated people to join our team. Please contact Hanna Brauner if you are interested, at hanna.brauner@ki.se
Selected publications
Mohanty S, Kamolvit W, Scheffschick A, Björklund A, Tovi J, Espinosa A, Brismar K, Nyström T, Schroeder J, Ostenson CG, Aspenström P, Brauner H, and Brauner A. Diabetes downregulates the antimicrobial peptide psoriasin and increases E. coli burden in the urinary bladder. Nat. Commun. 2022 Sep 20;13(1):4983.
Wickström SL, Wagner AK, Fuchs S, Elemans M, Kritikou J, Mehr R, Kärre K, Johansson MH*, Brauner H*. MHC Class I-Dependent Shaping of the NK Cell Ly49 Receptor Repertoire Takes Place Early during Maturation in the Bone Marrow. J Immunol. 2022 Aug 15;209(4):751-759. *shared last author
Nenonen J, Winther A, Leijonhufvud E, Belfrage E, Ekström-Smedby K, Brauner H. Overall survival and registration of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma patients in Sweden: a multi-center cohort and validation study
Acta Oncol. 2022 Mar 25:1-5.
Scheffschick A, Fuchs S, Malmström V, Gunnarsson I, Brauner H. Kidney infiltrating NK cells and NK-like T cells in lupus nephritis - presence, localization and the effect of immunosuppressive treatment.
Clin Exp Immunol. 2021 Dec 28:uxab035.
Kritikou JS, Oliveira MMS, Record J, Saeed MB, Nigam SM, He M, Keszei M, Wagner AK, Rentouli S, Brauner H, Sendel A, Sedimbi S, Rentouli S, Lane DP, Snapper SB, Kärre K, Vandenberghe P, Orange JS, and Westerberg LS. Constitutive activation of WASp leads to abnormal cytotoxic cells with increased granzyme B and degranulation response to target cells.
JCI Insight (2021), 22 Mar 2021, 6 (6): 140273.
Wagner A.K., Gehrmann U., Hiltbrunner S, Carannante V, Luu T.T., Näslund T.I., Brauner H, Kadri N, Kärre K and Gabrielsson S. Soluble and exosome-bound α‑Galactosylceramide mediate preferential proliferation of educated NK cells with increased anti-tumor capacity.
Cancers (2021), 15 Jan 2021, 13, 298
Record J, Sendel A, Kritikou JS, Kuznetsov NV, Brauner H, He M, Nagy N, Oliveira MMS, Griseti E, Haase CB, Dahlström J, Boddul S, Wermeling F, Thrasher AJ, Liu C, Andersson J, Claesson H-E, Winqvist O, Burns SO, Björkholm M, and Westerberg LS. An intronic deletion in Megakaryoblastic Leukemia 1 is associated with hyperproliferation of B cells in triplets with Hodgkin lymphoma. Haematologica. 2019 Oct 3
Keszei M, Record J, Kritikou JS, Wurzer H, Geyer C, Thiemann M, Drescher P, Brauner H, Köcher L, James J, He M, Baptista MA, Dahlberg CI, Biswas A, Lain S, Lane DP, Song W, Pütsep K, Vandenberghe P, Snapper SB, Westerberg LS. Constitutive activation of WASp in X-linked neutropenia renders neutrophils hyperactive. J Clin Invest. 2018 Aug 31;128(9):4115-4131.
Kritikou JS, DahlbergCIM, Baptista MAP, Wagner AK, Banerjee PP, Gwalani LA, Poli C, Panda S, Kärre K, Kaech SM, Wermeling F, Andersson J, Orange JS, Brauner H,Westerberg LS. IL-2 in the tumor microenvironment is necessary for Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein deficient NK cells to respond to tumors in vivo. Sci Rep. 2016 Aug 1.
Wagner AK, Wickström SL, Tallerico R, Salam S, Lakshmikanth T, Brauner H, Höglund P, Carbone E, Johansson MH, Kärre K. Retuning of Mouse NK Cells after Interference with MHC Class I Sensing Adjusts Self-Tolerance but Preserves Anticancer Response. Cancer Immunol Res. 2016 Feb;4(2):113-23.
Brauner H, Hall HT, Flodström-Tullberg M, Kärre K, Höglund P, Johansson S. Depletion of IL-2 receptor β-positive cells protects from diabetes in non-obese diabetic mice. Immunol Cell Biol. 2016 Feb;94(2):177-84.
Brauner H, Lüthje P, Grünler J, Ekberg NR, Dallner G, Brismar K, Brauner A. Markers of innate immune activity in patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus and the effect of the anti-oxidant coenzyme Q10 on inflammatory activity. Clin Exp Immunol.2014 Aug;177(2):478-82.