The first time Britta Engelhardt looked at immune cells under a microscope, she was hooked. She was already studying human biology at the University of Marburg – a back then relatively new degree program aimed to train students specifically for medical research. To choose her specialization, Engelhardt spent two days at the Institute of Immunology, where immune cells were activated with plant extracts. “Overnight, the small, inconspicuous cells transformed into large, completely different-looking cells,” the researcher recalls. It was then that she knew she wanted to know more – to understand how the immune system works.

A young woman with a mission

The two years of specialization were intense – not least because there were only four of them in the class, supervised by one professor. He supported Engelhardt when she contacted the Max Planck Institute in Würzburg before graduation to do her diploma thesis in the clinical research group for multiple sclerosis. She was particularly motivated by the fact that an acquaintance of hers was suffering from the insidious autoimmune disease, for which there were hardly any treatment options at the time.

“I was a young woman with a mission, and I decided: I am going to cure multiple sclerosis!” She went to Würzburg, where Hartmut Wekerle was one of the first in Europe to cultivate T cells in the laboratory. T cells are immune cells that become autoaggressive in multiple sclerosis and invade the central nervous system.
“The Max Planck Institute is for established researchers who want to win the Nobel Prize,” says Engelhardt, with a laugh. “But they actually accepted me.” She did her diploma thesis there and, after graduating in 1987, her doctoral thesis, which she completed in 1991. Both dealt with the migration of immune cells and how they cross the blood-brain barrier. Or, as she points out, the brain barriers, in the plural.

Altered brain barriers in people with MS

These protective barriers between the central nervous system and the rest of the body can be imagined as the double walls and the moat around a castle, explains Engelhardt. Inside, the brain and spinal cord are protected - sensitive nerve cells that need constant conditions, communicate with electrical signals and must not be disturbed. This is why there are strict entry and exit controls at each of the walls and in the moat. If these double barriers work, only the necessary nutrients enter, and the waste products leave.

In multiple sclerosis, blood-brain barrier function is disrupted early in the disease, and immune cells increasingly invade the moat and the interior of the castle making us sick. “Since the beginning of my career, I have been asking myself: Are these changes in the blood-brain barrier the cause or the consequence of the disease? Could the onset of the disease perhaps even be prevented if the blood-brain barrier could be stabilized in time?”

The first woman to head the Theodor Kocher Institute

These questions never left her and led her to the University of Stanford in the US for her postdoctoral studies, and later back to Germany, where she soon became head of her own research group at a Max Planck Institute.

In 2003, she not only became a full professor of immunobiology at the University of Bern, but also the first woman to head the renowned Theodor Kocher Institute.
“As a 39-year-old woman, I didn't really think I had a chance of actually getting the job,” says Engelhardt. “I thought I was invited as a token woman, and maybe that's why I was completely relaxed.”

She was all the more delighted to be given this opportunity. Engelhardt threw herself back into her work. She continued her research, exploring the secrets of the blood-brain barrier step by step, detail by detail, using ever-improving mouse and cell culture models and imaging techniques. “Anatomy may be out of fashion, but it is incredibly important for understanding the disease," she says. If you don't understand the architecture, you will misclassify the processes.

She is very pleased that she recently received the Swiss MS Society's research prize, worth 100’000 Swiss francs, for her many years of fundamental research. “I was a bit surprised, because we're not working on a sexy new topic.”

Research across national and disciplinary borders

The fact that she speaks of ‘we’ is significant. While researching boundaries and barriers, since the beginning of her career she has repeatedly crossed boundaries, networking across national and disciplinary boundaries, seeking exchange and collaboration - with colleagues in neurosurgery, molecular biology, bioinformatics, pathology and anatomy. She is vice-president of the International Brain Barriers Society, coordinated the EU-funded Brain Barriers Training PhD program, and currently heads the national cell migration PhD program. At the University of Bern, she has been involved for many years in the establishment of the Microscopy Imaging Center.

Out of necessity, as she explains: high-resolution electron and light microscopes can easily cost millions and are very expensive to maintain. She thus tried to address the Dean's concerns by starting a dialogue with all the institutes that work with such equipment. And now they are shared. It took a lot of persuading, but the effort was worth it - and not just for financial reasons: “It is great when we go to a neighbouring institute and talk to colleagues there.”

Commitment to equal opportunities

In addition to her research, Britta Engelhardt is also involved in equal opportunities as chair of the Medical Faculty's Equal Opportunities Commission. “There is still a lot to be done," she says. It's not just the 'bad' men and the 'poor' women, but the persistent stereotypes in everyone's minds that cement the status quo. For example, she is amazed at how difficult it is for some clinics to develop family-friendly rosters: “We have AI, we have medical progress - but we can't even manage rosters that allow women and men with children to work 60 per cent.”

Her evenings are often late, and it's not uncommon for her to be working with colleagues on a research project until ten in the evening. “My work is my life," she says. She is currently working on a project using an advanced X-ray-based imaging technique to visualize individual cells in living animals. This will provide a better understanding of the different brain barriers and how they are altered in MS. “This will require us to go to Japan, Canada or Australia and work with physicists and mathematicians. I'm really excited about this new research opportunity!”