Dartmouth Medical School - Faculty Database

DMS • 1 Rope Ferry Road • Hanover, NH 03755-1404 • Voice 603 650-1200 • Fax 603 650-1202 • Toll Free 1 877 DMS 1797

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Brent T. Harris, M.D., Ph.D.

Title(s):
Assistant Professor of Pathology
Director of ALS Center of DHMC

Department(s):
Pathology

Education:
M.D., Georgetown U. Sch. of Medicine
Ph.D., Pharmacology, Georgetown U.
M.S., Biochemistry, Hahnemann U.
B.A., Colby College

Post Doctoral Training
Resident in Anatomic Pathology, Stanford U.
Neuropathology Fellow, Stanford U.
Chief Resident, Pathology Dept., Stanford U.
Postdoc, Dept. of Neurobiology, Stanford U.,

Programs:
Neuroscience Center at Dartmouth
Norris Cotton Cancer Center
Program in Experimental and Molecular Medicine

Websites:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~btharris/
http://dms.dartmouth.edu/ncd/
http://cancer.dartmouth.edu/doctors/HarrisB.shtml
http://www.dhmc.org/goto/als
http://dms.dartmouth.edu/pemm/overview/program/

Contact Information:

Dept. of Pathology, HB - 7600 Dartmouth Medical School One Medical Center Drive Lebanon NH 03756
Phone: 603-650-7211 Fax: 603-650-6120 Email: Brent.T.Harris@Dartmouth.edu

Selected Publications:

Ullian, E.M., Harris, B.T.(Co-first authors) Wu, A., Chang, J. and Barres, B.A Schwann cells or astrocytes increase glutamatergic synaptogenesis in primary culture of rat spinal motor neurons. Mol Cell Neurosci 25(2):241-51, 2004. (view details on MedLine)

Stommel, EW, Graber, D, Montanye, J, Cohen, JA, Harris, BT. Does Having Schizophrenia Reduce the Chances of Developing Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis? Med Hypotheses, 69(5):1021-8, 2007 (view details on MedLine)

Mohila, CA, Ornvold, K, Kubicka, ZJ, and Harris, BT Cerebellar loss and brain stem atrophy associated with neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia in a discordant twin. Ped Dev Pathol, 2009 Jul 9:1. [Epub ahead of print].

Stommel, E.W. Langford, G., van Hoff, R., Bercury, K., Harris, B.T. Mitochondrial localization in motor neurons in response to tumor necrosis factor alpha: implication for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Neuroscience, 146(3):1013-9, 2007). (view details on MedLine)

Deleault NR, Harris BT, Rees JR, Supattapone S. Formation of native prions from minimal components in vitro. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 104(23):9741-6. 2007 (view details on MedLine)

Stommel EW, Cohen JA, Fadul CE, Cogbill CH, Graber DJ, Kingman L, Mackenzie T, Channon Smith JY, Harris BT. Efficacy of thalidomide for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: A phase II open label clinical trial. Amyotroph Lateral Scler. 2009 Jan 28:1-12 (view details on MedLine)

Havrda MC, Harris BT, Mantani A, Ward NM, Paolella BR, Cuzon VC, Yeh HH, Israel MA. Id2 is required for specification of dopaminergic neurons during adult olfactory neurogenesis. J Neurosci. 2008 Dec 24;28(52):14074-86. (view details on MedLine)

Graber, DJ, Hickey, WF, Harris, BT Progressive changes in microglia and macrophages in spinal cord and peripheral nerve in the transgenic rat model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. J Neuroinflammation (in press)

Missios, S., Harris, BT, Dodge, CP, Simoni, MK, Costine, BA, Lee, YL, Quebada, PB, Hillier, SC, Curtis, R, Adams, LB, and Duhaime, AC Scaled cortical impact in immature swine: effect of age and gender on lesion volume. J Neurotrauma, 26(11):1943-51, 2009.

Green, CS, Sinnott-Armstrong, NA, Himmelstein, DS, Park, PJ, Moore, JH, Harris, BT An Implementation of Multifactor Dimensionality Reduction for Graphics Processing Units Enables Large Scale Testing of Epistasis. Bioinformatics (in press, 2010)

Professional Interests:

Our ability to move our arms and legs depends on the integrity of our spinal motor neurons, which relay electrical signals from our brain to our muscles. When these motor neurons die, as can occur in injury or in a variety of degenerative diseases that affect infants and children (spinal muscular atrophies) or adults (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS) irreversible paralysis or even death may ensue. Cortical upper motor neurons extend their axons great distances down to the spinal cord. For unknown reasons in ALS, this select group of neurons in the cerebrum atrophy and die similar to the lower motor neurons in the spinal cord. A number of transgenic animal models for ALS exist based on the superoxide dismutase (SOD1) gene mutations found in a portion of familial ALS patients. These animals display similar clinical symptoms and histopathology to that found in human motor neuron disease. Thus, it is now possible and crucial to understand the signaling mechanisms that normally promote upper and lower motor neuron survival and how these processes go awry in motor neuron diseases.
As a neuropathologist and neuroscientist, I’ve recently joined the faculty of the DMS and started a neuroscience lab interested in studying glial-neuronal interactions, neuronal cell survival, ALS models of disease, and brain tumors.

Courses Taught:

SBM Pathology Course Co-coordinator and Lecturer - DMS
General Pathology - DMS
Problem Based Learning - DMS
Neurosciences - DMS
Neurobiology of Disease, Course Director - PEMM
PEMM Core Course - PEMM

Grant Information:

Current (PI unless indicated):
Neuroinflammation and ALS, Foundation support through ALS Center of DHMC
Triterpenoids and CNS inflammation, Reata Pharmaceuticals
A Multicenter Study for the Validation of ALS Metabolomic Biomarkers and Development of ALS Diagnostics. ALS Association
Biochemistry of Infectious Prions. NIH R01, Co-Inv
Co-registered Fluorescence-Enhanced Resection of Malignant Glioma Stage II: Evaluation of Surgical Accuracy. NIH R01, Co-Inv

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