Barbara Franke PhD

Professor Barbara Franke is the head of the Research lab for Multifactorial Diseases at the department of Human Genetics of the Radboud University Medical Center and the leader of the Radboud Research Theme 'Neurodevelopmental Disorders'. She is a PI at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior. Her research is directed at understanding the biology of psychiatric disorders, especially that of ADHD and autism in children and adults.

She is an expert in the molecular genetics of these complex disorders, but also employs bioinformatics and cognomens approaches as well as animal research in the fruit fly to understand the pathways from gene to disease. She leads the Cognomens Initiative on research linking genetics, brain and cognition in Nijmegen. She founded and leads the International Multicenter persistent ADHD Collaboration (IMpACT) and is a founding member and member of the Central Support Group of the large multi-national ENIGMA consortium on brain imaging genetics.

She coordinates the EU FP7-funded international Aggress type Consortium and the Horizon2020-funded MiND European Training Network, and leads work packages in several other EU-funded consortia, the Health projects TACTICS, IMAGEMEND, CoCA, and also participates in the IMI2 project PRISM. She received prestigious Vici and Aspasia awards from the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research and the Hermesdorf Prize for international activities from the Radboud University.