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
JAN HILLERT GROUP
Neuroepidemiology with focus on multiple sclerosis
About
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system affecting more than two million people world-wide. MS is the second most common cause of neurological disability in young adults. The disease progression varies between patients but often causes different degrees of disability.
In the MS epidemiology research group, we use data from the Swedish MS registry on its own or linked to data from public databases such as Statistics Sweden, National Board of Health and Welfare and Swedish Social Insurance Agency in order to perform epidemiological studies related to MS. Access to these large data collections allows as to conduct research projects into MS outcomes with the aim of describing how MS patients fare over time as regards disease progression, treatment regimens and socioeconomic outcomes. Our studies will hopefully contribute to increased knowledge of factors influencing MS disease and socioeconomic burden of MS with the ultimate ambition of providing the basis for an improved and cost effective healthcare for MS patients.
Our research group consists of molecular biologists, epidemiologists and neurologists.
Selected projects
Basic epidemiology
Incidence and prevalence of MS in Sweden, MS geographical distribution and changes over time in incidence and prevalence of MS
Treatment studies (pharmacoepidemiology)
Patterns of treatment initiation, switch, escalation and discontinuation, types of treatment, adverse effects and treatment efficacy
Health economy and societal consequences of MS
Cost of MS, sickness absence, disability pension, earnings
Clinical course of MS
Progression of disability and impairment in different types of MS, investigations on causes and course of pediatric MS, and factors influencing disease progression
Selected publications
Manouchehrinia A, Westerlind H, Kingwell E, Zhu F, Carruthers R, RamanujamR, Ban M, Glaser A, Sawcer S, Tremlett H, Hillert J. Age Related Multiple Sclerosis Severity Score: Disability ranked by age. Mult Scler. 2017 Dec;23(14):1938-1946.
Kavaliunas A, Manouchehrinia A, Danylaite Karrenbauer V, Gyllensten H, Glaser A, Alexanderson K, HillertJ. Income in Multiple Sclerosis Patients with Different Disease Phenotypes. PLoS One. 2017 Jan 12;12(1):e0169460.
Kavaliunas A, Manouchehrinia A, Stawiarz L, RamanujamR, Agholme J, Hedström AK, Beiki O, Glaser A, Hillert J. Importance of early treatment initiation in the clinical course of multiple sclerosis. Mult Scler. 2017 Aug;23(9):1233-1240.
WesterlindH, Stawiarz L, Fink K, Hillert J, Manouchehrinia A. A significant decrease in diagnosis of primary progressive multiple sclerosis: A cohort study. Mult Scler. 2016 Jul;22(8):1071-9
Kavaliunas A, Wiberg M, Tinghög P, Glaser A, Gyllensten H, Alexanderson K, Hillert J. Earnings and Financial Compensation from Social Security Systems Correlate Strongly with Disability for Multiple Sclerosis Patients. PLoS One. 2015 Dec 22;10(12):e0145435.
RamanujamR, Hedström AK, Manouchehrinia A, Alfredsson L, Olsson T, Bottai M, HillertJ. Effect of Smoking Cessation on Multiple Sclerosis Prognosis. JAMA Neurol. 2015 Oct;72(10):1117-23.
Hillert J, Stawiarz L. The Swedish MS registry – clinical support tool and scientific resource. Acta Neurol Scand. 2015;132(199):11-9.
Westerlind H, Imrell K, Ramanujam R, Myhr KM, Celius EG, Harbo HF, Oturai AB, Hamsten A, Alfredsson L, Olsson T, Kockum I, Koski T, Hillert J. Identity-by-descent mapping in a Scandinavian multiple sclerosis cohort. Eur J Hum Genet. 2015 May;23(5):688-92.
Westerlind H, Ramanujam R, Uvehag D, Kuja-Halkola R, Boman M, Bottai M, Lichtenstein P, HillertJ. Modest familial risks for multiple sclerosis: a registry-based study of the population of Sweden. Brain. 2014 Mar;137(Pt 3):770-8.