Rainer H. Straub MD

Rainer Straub received his M.D. degree from the University of Freiburg, Germany, in 1988. He began his training in Internal Medicine at the University of Freiburg and, since 1991, in Regensburg, Germany. In the year 1994, he got a fellowship to study basic aspects of the neuro-immune synapse in the Dept. of Pharmacology at the University of Vienna, Austria. Back in Regensburg, he started a Rheumatology fellowship. In 1995, he joined the faculty at the University of Regensburg as an Assistant Professor of Medicine. In 1997, he received his Rheumatology board certification, and in the same year, he became one of the two Heads of the Laboratories of the Dept. of Internal Medicine I at Regensburg University. Since 2001, he is a full professor of Experimental Medicine at Regensburg University.

Dr. Straub’s research interest has focused on neuroendocrine-immune aspects of the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis and mechanisms of inflammation. He was among the first to demonstrate the loss of anti-inflammatory sympathetic nerve fibers in inflammatory lesions. Loss of these nerve fibers is most probably an active process mediated by nerve-repellent factors. Dr. Straub also worked on abnormalities of steroid hormone metabolism in rheumatoid arthritis. They figured out the inadequate secretion of glucocorticoids and androgens in relation to inflammation. His laboratory has also worked extensively on the nerve fiber-immune cell contact, the neuro-immune synapse in the spleen. In recent years, he focused on aspects of evolutionary medicine, energy regulation, insulin resistance, and volume regulation to explain disease sequelae in chronic inflammatory diseases.