Robert Harris

Robert Harris

Professor | Academic vice president
Telephone: +46852486260
Visiting address: L8:04, CMM Karolinska Universitetssjukhuset Solna, 17176 Stockholm
Postal address: K8 Klinisk neurovetenskap, K8 Neuro Harris, 171 77 Stockholm
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About me

  • Professor of Immunotherapy in Neurological Diseases 2013-present

    Academic Vice-President of Doctoral Education 2019-present

    Chairperson International Advisory Council 2020-2023

    President of ORPHEUS doctoral education organization 2014-2022

    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 Institute 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.

    Education
    University Education
    BSc (Hons) Biology - Upper Second Class Portsmouth Polytechnic, UK 1987

    PhD Training
    ’Haemolymph proteins and the snail immune response’ University College London, UK 1991

    Karolinska Institutet's pedagogy prize 2014

    FEBS Education Award 2024

Research

  • We are primarily interested in understanding the pathogenesis of incurable, chronic disease states of the Central Nervous System, including ALS, MS, Alzheimer's disease and glioma brain tumors.

    HOW CAN WE TREAT OR CURE THE DISEASES? There is currently no cure for the diseases we study, and existing medications are only partly effective.

    Our main interest is thus on developing new strategies to reduce or abrogate disease symptoms.

    We focus on using the body’s own myeloid cells as a means of treating the same individual through ‘personalised cell therapy’ or by targeting these cells for immunomodulation.

Teaching

  • Central Director of Doctoral studies at Karolinska Institutet 2008-2018

    Director of Doctoral studies at Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Karolinska Institutet 2005-2018

    Awarded Karolinska Institutet’s Pedagogy Prize 2014

    131 publications and 6 reviews – Web of Science h index = 45 Google Scholar H index = 39, i index = 95 (as of 27th April 2021)

    Currently receives research funding from Swedish Medical research Council, CancerFonden, Alltid Litt Sterkere, Ulla Carin Lindquist Stiftelse and Karolinska Institutet

    Currently supervises 1 PhD student, co-supervises 5 PhD students, 2 Postdoctoral Fellows and one undergraduate student

    Courses taught at a postgraduate level:
    - High Performance Chromatography Methods - Applications in Analysis of Biologically Significant Molecules (Chile)
    - Trypanosomiasis and Lesihmanisasis protozoan infection biology (Stockholm University)
    - I IUIS Course “Infections & Immunology: Views Towards the XXI Century” (Chile)
    - Molecular Immunology (KI)
    - Cellular and Molecular Infection Biology (KI)
    - Winter Immunology School (KI)
    - Summer School in Immunology, “Translational Medicine in the field of Autoimmunity” (KI)
    - New Vaccines – advances in current vaccinology (KI)
    - Clinical and Experimental Neuroimmunology (KI)
    - Cytokines in inflammation (KI)
    - Basic Immunology (KI)
    - Neurovirology (KI)
    - Immune, Gene and Cell therapy (KI)
    - Translational Medicine (Germany)

    Courses taught at an undergraduate level:
    - Medical Microbiology and Immunology
    - Experimental and Clinical Neuroimmunology
    - Immunological mechanisms in autoimmune diseases
    - Tropiska parasiter och svenska
    - Eukaryot mikrobiologi
    - Basic Immunology - Macrophages

    Leadership courses for faculty:
    - Introduction course for PhD students at KI
    - Basic course for supervisors at KI
    - Advance course in pedagogy for supervisors at KI
    - Future Academic Leaders at KI

    Workshops:
    -Conflict prevention, management and resolution
    - Intended Learning Outcomes - formulation and examination
    - Professional responsbility as a PhD supervisor


    These teaching activities are primarily conducted at locally at KI, but also both nationally in Swedish universities as well as internationally.

Articles

All other publications

Grants

  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2022 - 31 December 2024
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 December 2021 - 30 November 2026
    The origin and progression of many neurodegenerative diseases is not clearly understood, and basic research is required to provide a platform for development of effective therapies. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is an incurable progressive disease of motor neurons in the spinal cord and brain, being associated with dysfunctional microglia. The purpose of this research proposal is to address this unmet need using a dual therapeutic platform approach aiming to modulate the activity of disease-associated microglia. Based on several years of our research into microglial biology and development of immunotherapies, the aim of our research programme is to develop novel immunotherapies including (i) enforced cellular repopulation of the CNS, in which we will replace microglia with transplanted healthy cells, and (ii) cuttimg-edge nanobiologics delivering specific immunomodulatory drugs that will specifically modify microglial function. We will develop protocols for such therapies and investigate the immunomodulatory effects at molecular and functional levels in both in vitro brain organoid cell culture systems and in vivo in experimental models of ALS. We envisage that these therapeutic platforms will be applicable to a range of neurodegenerative diseases. Not only will these platforms provide potential personalised immunotherapies for translation into the clinic but will also greatly increase our understanding of the molecular cues governing microglial colonization of the CNS.
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2019 - 31 December 2021
  • Nanoparticle immunotherapy for the treatment of brain tumors
    Swedish Cancer Society
    1 January 2019
    Tumors suppress the host's immune system. Breaking this immunosuppression is important for effective tumor therapy. Nanoparticles that contain softening molecules or tumor-killing chemicals are a new form of specific therapy that can be used to achieve immunosuppression. We have previously identified some of the most important molecules and genes that need to be silenced to prevent the development of immunosuppression and to prevent the growth of brain tumors. We will develop new gene-silencing molecules, so-called RNAi, nanoparticles for the treatment of brain tumors. The technology for this development is already established and patented. A number of molecules in the brain tumor will be blocked while delivery of a tumor-killing substance is delivered. We will try different combinations of these different agents to develop an effective protocol for the treatment of brain tumors. The technique will also be tested in melanoma and could be used with various cancers. People with GBM die on average within 2.5 years after diagnosis. We strive to improve survival by combining new therapeutic options for inhibition of immunosuppression in parallel with tumor-killing treatment. Nanoparticles will be used to deliver specific immunomodulatory agents, and different types of nanoparticles will be tested so that an optimal variant can be selected. We will first explore this concept in animal models with the long-term goal of translating the therapy to the clinic and thereby dramatically increase the life expectancy of people with brain tumors.
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2018 - 31 December 2020
  • Breaking brain tumor-associated immunosuppression by macrophage cell therapy
    Swedish Cancer Society
    1 January 2015
    During inflammation the balance/imbalance of pro- and anti-inflammatory cellular activities will decide outcome – disease progression or healing. In patients with chronic inflammatory diseases there is an imbalance. Injecting pre-activated macrophages will restore this immunological imbalance. We have demonstrated that transfer of immunosuppressive macrophages modulates autoimmune diseases and have recently extended the myeloid cell therapy platform to include use of adult microglia. In cancer settings transfer of immunoactivated macrophages will reduce immunosuppression associated with the tumor environment and enable effective tumor killing Our goal is to provide proof-of-concept in an experimental model of glioblastoma brain tumors that effective therapy can be conducted using adoptive transfer of myeloid cells. Combined transfer of pre-activated, pro-inflammatory cells directly into the brain as well as peripherally will serve to enable mounting of an efficient anti-tumor immune response that will be not be suppressed by the tumor. We will study the immunological mechanisms involved in vitro by studying macrophage and TAMs. This project not only give us to better understanding of fundamental tumor immunobiological processes, but will also be directly translatable to the clinic Individuals with GBM are usaully dead with 2.5 years of diagnosis - we aim to increase that life expectancy dramatically through establishment of a clinical protocol that is repeatable due to use of an individual's own blood cells.
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2015 - 31 December 2018
  • Breaking brain tumor-associated immunosuppression by macrophage cell therapy
    Swedish Cancer Society
    1 January 2014
    During inflammation the balance/imbalance of pro- and anti-inflammatory cellular activities will decide outcome – disease progression or healing. In patients with chronic inflammatory diseases there is an imbalance. Injecting pre-activated macrophages will restore this immunological imbalance. We have demonstrated that transfer of immunosuppressive macrophages modulates autoimmune diseases and have recently extended the myeloid cell therapy platform to include use of adult microglia. In cancer settings transfer of immunoactivated macrophages will reduce immunosuppression associated with the tumor environment and enable effective tumor killing Our goal is to provide proof-of-concept in an experimental model of glioblastoma brain tumors that effective therapy can be conducted using adoptive transfer of myeloid cells. Combined transfer of pre-activated, pro-inflammatory cells directly into the brain as well as peripherally will serve to enable mounting of an efficient anti-tumor immune response that will be not be suppressed by the tumor. We will study the immunological mechanisms involved in vitro by studying macrophage and TAMs. This project not only give us to better understanding of fundamental tumor immunobiological processes, but will also be directly translatable to the clinic Individuals with GBM are usaully dead with 2.5 years of diagnosis - we aim to increase that life expectancy dramatically through establishment of a clinical protocol that is repeatable due to use of an individual's own blood cells.
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2012 - 31 December 2012
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2012 - 31 December 2014
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2009 - 31 December 2011
  • Alternatively activated macrophages as a novel innate immune T1D therapy
    Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
    1 September 2008 - 31 August 2009

Employments

  • Professor, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, 2013-

Degrees and Education

  • Docent, Karolinska Institutet, 1999

Leadership and responsibility assignments

  • Academic vice president, Academic Vice-President of Doctoral Education, Karolinska Institutet, 2019-

Distinction and awards

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