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.
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Contact: communication@cmm.se
CENTER FOR MOLECULAR MEDICINE
JON LAMPA TEAM
Neuro-immune regulation and central nervous impact on rheumatic diseases
About
Chronic pain and fatigue are major and severe symptoms in several rheumatic diseases, often reported by the patients to cause significant distress and reduction of quality of life. We recently published data indicating that joint inflammation in both RA and experimental arthritis affects the central nervous system (CNS), and in RA, these mechanisms seem to be related to fatigue (see publication list below). Our general research focus is the impact of inflammation on CNS and cerebral symptoms, with a special focus on central nervous mechanisms of pain regulation. For the latter, ongoing clinical studies using imaging techniques (such as fMRI, documented in studies of CNS pain processing) are combined with quantitative sensory pain testing, and the effects of biologic therapy on pain processing are investigated. Moreover, as a part of a EU funded project, pain and fatigue patterns in early RA patients are combined with proteomic analyses, for identification and validation of biological markers for generalized pain. A similar approach will also be used for mapping of neuro-markers in SLE with cerebral manifestations. In a translational approach, we also investigate the impact of arthritis on CNS, with a specific focus on central mechanisms of the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway, known to be important for neuro-immune regulation in several inflammatory conditions (Borovikova, Nature 2000). Increased knowledge in bidirectional neuro-immune pathways may lead to novel therapeutic strategies of immune suppression and fatigue/pain regulation both in RA and other inflammatory diseases and pain conditions.
Selected publications
J Lindqvist, L Alfredsson, L Klareskog, J Lampa*, H Westerlind* (*contributed equally). Unmet Needs in Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Subgroup of Patients With High Levels of Pain, Fatigue, and Psychosocial Distress 3 Years After Diagnosis. ACR Open Rheumatology 2022 (Epub ahead of print)
ML Hetland, EA Haavardsholm, A Rudin, D Nordström, M Numohamed, B Gudbjörnsson, J Lampa, K Hørslev-Petersen, T Uhlig, G Gröndal, M Østergaard, MS Heiberg, J Twisk, K Lend, S Krabbe, J Lindqvist, AK Hultgård Ekwall, K Lederballe Grøn, M Kapetanovic, F Faustini, R Tuompo, T Lorenzen, G Cagnotto, E Baecklund, O Hendricks, D Vedder, T Sokka-Isler, T Husmark, MK Aga Ljoså, E Brodin, T Ellingsen, A Söderbergh, M Rizk, Å Reckner Olsson, P Larsson, L Uhrenholt, S Andreas Just, DJ Stevens, T Bay Laurberg, G Bakland, IC Olsen, RF van Vollenhoven and the NORD-STAR study group*. Active conventional therapy and three different biological treatments in early rheumatoid arthritis: Phase IV investigator-initiated, randomized, observer-blinded clinical trial. BMJ 2020; Dec 2; 371:m4328 | doi: 10.1136/bmj.m4328
A Sandström, I Ellerbrock, KB Jensen, S Martinsen, R Altawil, P Hakeberg, P Fransson, J Lampa, E Kosek. Altered cerebral pain processing of noxious stimuli from inflamed joints in rheumatoid arthritis: an event-related fmri study. Brain Behavior Immun, 2019 Jun 19.
PE Khoonsari, E Ossipova, J Lengqvist, CI Svensson, E Kosek, D Kadetoff, P-J Jakobsson, K Kultima, J Lampa. The human CSF Pain proteome. Proteomics. 2019 Jan 6;190:67-76.
J Lampa, M Westman, D Kadetoff, A Nordenstedt Agréus, E Le Maitre, C Gillis-Haegerstrand, M Andersson, M Khademi, M Corr, CA Christianson, A Delaney, TL. Yaksh, E Kosek, CI. Svensson. Peripheral inflammatory disease associated with centrally activated IL-1 system in Humans and mice. Procl Natl Acad Sci USA. 2012 Jul 31;109(31):12728-33. Epub 2012 Jul 16