ECNP Podcast — more information

Episode title: On what it was like to be an Early Career Scientist two decades ago, comorbidities in ADHD, being part of the ECNP Network ADHD across the lifespan, and the impact of the pandemic

Interviewee: Andreas Reif, Germany
Andreas Reif studied Medicine from 1993 to 2000 at the University of Würzburg. Having decided that he wanted to work in the field of clinical neuroscience, he obtained his doctorate at the Department of Pharmacology (Supervisor: Prof. Dr. H.H.H.W. Schmidt), working on the catalytic mechanism of nitric oxide synthase type I (NOS1). He subsequently specialized in psychiatry, where - from early on - he complemented clinical work with research projects. During his clinical education at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Würzburg, he joined the research group of Prof. Klaus-Peter Lesch, where he initially focused on the genetic underpinnings of emotions and studied those in animal models. From 2003 onwards, he shifted his focus to adult ADHD, which is still one of his major areas of interest and expertise. In the last 15 years, he has intensively studied the neurobiological basis of these disorders. In doing so, he became a member of a tight network of researchers from many parts of the world, collaborating in the IMpACT consortium and the ECNP Network ADHD across the Lifespan, both of which he co-founded and co-leads. His second phenotype of interest are mood and anxiety disorders - especially bipolar disorder, depression, and panic disorders. During his work at the University of Würzburg, he got promoted several times up to the level of Vice Chair. In 2014, he moved to Frankfurt am Main, where he took over the Chair position of the Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy and established sections on Translational and Experimental Psychiatry. He serves in important positions on the boards of several societies, the most important ones being the DGPPN and ENCP. He currently coordinates the EU-funded CoCA consortium and is a work package leader in several additional EU-funded consortia. Andreas Reif has published more than 350 papers with a cumulative impact factor > 2.000 and amounting to an h factor of 61.

Interviewer: Nils Opel, Germany
Nils Opel is a psychiatrist and junior group leader at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Münster, Germany. Following his inaugural dissertation on brain structural abnormalities in childhood trauma under the supervision of Prof. Udo Dannlowski in Münster, Germany (2015), he continued research examining the mediating role of brain structure and function in the relationship between environmental and genetic risk factors on clinical phenotypes of affective disorders. Another major focus of his work represents the interplay between metabolic and affective disorders. In 2018 he worked as a visiting researcher in the lab of Prof. Bernhard Baune at the University of Adelaide, Australia where he complemented his research line with work on morphometric signatures of polygenic risk profiles in affective disorders. His recent work focuses on the application of digital phenotyping methods such as smartphone-based monitoring in affective disorders.