Biography

Norman Harris received his B.S. degree (1987) in Chemical Engineering at Tennessee Technological University and continued his education with a Master’s degree and PhD (1991) in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, under the direction of Dr. Robert J. Roselli.  Following graduate school, Dr. Harris moved to Louisiana and worked as a post-doc in the laboratory of our department head Dr. Neil Granger, and progressed through the ranks of Instructor and Research Assistant Professor before accepting a tenure-track faculty position in the Department of Bioengineering at Penn State in 1998.  In 2004, Dr. Harris returned to our Physiology Department at LSUHSC.

Dr. Harris has been funded to perform microvascular research by the Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana, the National Institutes of Health, the Whitaker Foundation, the American Heart Association, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation.  He is a member of the Microcirculatory Society (MCS), the American Physiological Society (APS), the American Diabetes Association (ADA), and the Association for Research in Vision and Opthalmology (ARVO).

Research

The Harris laboratory currently examines the microcirculation in the pathology associated with diabetic retinopathy and inflammatory bowel disease. In both diseases, changes occur in microvascular flow, hypoxia, and permeability, with the mechanisms and consequences of these changes still under investigation.

Laboratory Techniques
Intravital microscopy (brightfield and fluorescence)

Measurement of microvascular flow and permeability

Immunostaining of tissue sections

Computerized video analysis of microscope images

Figure Legend

Top: Texas Red albumin (red dye) flowing through vessels of the mouse retina; cell nuclei are stained blue with DAPI.

Middle: Pimonidazole (brown) staining showing areas of hypoxia in the mouse proximal colon; cell nuclei are stained blue with hematoxylin.

Bottom: Green staining of the vessels (PECAM-1, specifically) in the mouse proximal colon; cell nuclei are stained with propidium iodide.