Maria Grigoroiu-Șerbănescu 

Maria Grigoroiu-Șerbănescu is the head of Biometric Psychiatric Genetics Research Unit, at Alexandru Obregia Clinical Psychiatric Hospital, Bucharest.  

She graduated at the University of Bucharest in 1973 (Psychology Faculty) and worked at the Institute of Neurology and Psychiatry as a researcher and clinical psychologist  until 1995 and then at the Obregia Hospital performing  clinical  work and psychiatric genetics research. She obtained her PhD at the University of Bucharest in 1982. She specialized in psychiatric genetics in Germany (Humboldt fellow, Bonn University), USA ( Columbia University, New York, Fulbright fellow),  France (INSERM, Paris). In 1998 she founded the Psychiatric Genetics Research Unit in the Obregia Hospital.

In 1987 she was awarded the “Gheorghe Marinescu”  Prize of the Romanian Academy and in  2013 she was elected member of the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences. Since 2013 she is a member of the task force of the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics. She is a member of international  psychiatric genomics consortia (PGC, ConLiGen). 

She published 73 papers in world class journals like Science, Nature Genetics, Molecular Psychiatry, Lancet, Nature Communications, American Journal of Psychiatry, JAMA Psychiatry, American Journal of Human Genetics, Biological Psychiatry,  etc. with a total of 3000 citations in Web of Science. Her research focussed on the genetics and developmental psychopathology of affective disorders (bipolar disorder and unipolar major depression).

She is the first author of several papers published in collaboration with outstanding researchers from Columbia University (New York), Institute of Human Genetics, Bonn and Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim (Germany), University College London (UK), Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland (USA), University of Zuerich and University of Basel (Switzerland), University of Poznan (Poland), University of Antwerp (Belgium).

She is cited in over 30 reference psychiatry and psychiatric genetics textbooks published by famous publishing houses like Oxford University Press,  Cambridge University Press, Springer,    Elsevier;  Wiley, Blackwell, Lippincott, Williams, & Wilkins, Routledge, Guilford Press,   American Psychopathological  Association, American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, etc., between 2000 and 2019.