Division of Clinical Immunology & Allergy

Petra Arck

MD, PhD equivalent (Germany)

Associate Professor (PT)

 

 

Education and Professional Standing

  • Medical degree (MD), University of Tuebingen, Germany: 1993
  • PhD equivalent, , University of Tuebingen, Germany: 1994
  • Habilitation, Charite, University Medicine Berlin, Germany: 2001
  • Full Professor in Psychoneuroimmunology, Charite, University Medicine Berlin, Germany: since 2006
  • Canada Research Chair in Neuroimmunology: since 2007
  • Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, cross appointed with Department of Obstetrics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada: since 2008

 

Academic (or Research or Clinical) Interests

A central paradigm in research on brain body cross talk is that the endocrine, immune and nervous systems engage in multiple interactions during the body’s response to acute and chronic stress, thereby stimulating a series of adaptation responses. These typically include behavioural, cardiovascular, metabolic, endocrine and immunological changes, the latter ranging from immunosuppression to inflammation. Interestingly, the peripheral immune system also regulates the central nervous system, e.g. inflammatory mediators can signal the brain, in consequence influencing behaviour, depressive symptoms and aggravation stress perception.

Several diseases have long been recognized to be triggered or aggravated by psychological stress, such as inflammatory bowel diseases, migraines, allergic encephalomyelitis, asthma and multiple sclerosis. Also, stress perception during pregnancy can trigger pregnancy complications and imprint the fetus to develop diseases in adult life.

As a result of research performed by Dr. Arck’s group in the area of neuroimmunology, the main scientific achievements of the past 5 years include

  1. the distinct classification of stress-induced challenges of immune privileged sites (intrauterine environment, lung, skin) via neuroimmunological dysregulation
  2. the identification of impaired intrauterine development and fetal programming of diseases upon exposure to neuroimmunological dysregulation in utero
  3. the translation of results from basic science into clinically relevant evidence by delineating identical mediators in mice and humans

Key objective of future research projects include to characterize the hierarchy of such mediators within the stress response cascade in selected clinical pathologies (pregnancy complications, fetal imprinting of adult diseases, skin diseases). Here, descriptive experiments and subsequent functional interventions will initially be performed in murine models. Insights from this basic science approach will be directly translated into testing the clinical relevance of such key mediators in humans. Upon understanding how the brain body cross talk is operational, our long term research goal will be to exploit behavioural strategies for the maintenance of health.

Activities and Contributions

Dr. Arck is President of the European Society for Reproductive Immunoloy and on the Board of a number of scientific societies and editorial boards. Over the past 10 years, she has supervised 14 doctoral students and 8 postdoctoral fellows and some of her trainees now hold faculty position of their own.  She has received continuous research funding over the last 10 years and is a reviewer for granting agencies, scientific periodicals and graduate schools.

Selected Publications

  1. Karimi K, Blois SM, Arck PC. The upside of natural killers. Nat Med. 2008; 14(11):1184-5.
  2. Arck PC, Rücke M, Rose M, Szekeres-Bartho J, Douglas AJ, Pritsch M, Blois SM, Pincus MK, Bärenstrauch N, Dudenhausen JW, Nakamura K, Sheps S, Klapp BF. Early risk factors for miscarriage: a prospective cohort study in pregnant women. Reprod Biomed Online. 2008;17(1):101-13.
  3. Arck PC, Gilhar A, Bienenstock J, Paus R. The alchemy of immune privilege explored from a neuroimmunological perspective. Curr Opin Pharmacol. 2008; 8(4):480-9.
  4. Blois SM, Ilarregui JM, Tometten M, Garcia M, Orsal AS, Cordo-Russo R, Toscano MA, Bianco GA, Kobelt P, Handjiski B, Tirado I, Markert UR, Klapp BF, Poirier F, Szekeres-Bartho J, Rabinovich GA, Arck PC. A pivotal role for galectin-1 in fetomaternal tolerance. Nat Med. 2007; 13(12):1450-7.
  5. Pincus-Knackstedt MK, Joachim RA, Blois SM, Douglas AJ, Orsal AS, Klapp BF, Wahn U, Hamelmann E, Arck PC. Prenatal stress enhances susceptibility of murine adult offspring toward airway inflammation. J Immunol. 2006; 177(12):8484-92