Draft:Illeana Hanganu-Opatz

Ileana Hanganu-Opatz (June 20, 1975) is a leader of the Institute of Developmental Neurophysiology at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, in Germany.

Early Life and Education
Born in Bucharest, Romania in the year 1975, Opatz initiated her academic career with a foundation in Mathematics/Informations before choosing to pursue Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Bucharest from 1994 to 1998. She continued her academic journey, honing her skills in cellular physiology at the University of Hamburg Germany, where she was supported by an EU TEMPUS fellowship. Hanganu-Optaz completed her PhD at Heinrich Heine University in Dusseldorf Germany in 2002. It was here she researched brain wiring and cortical development which influenced much of her postdoctoral work.

During her graduate studies from 1999 to 2002, Hanganu-Opatz received a fellowship for the Neuroscience Graduate Program, "Pathologische Prozesse des Nervensystems: Vom Gen zum Verhalten," providing her with specialized training and resources to delve deeper into her research interests. Just before embarking on a postdoctoral journey at the INSERM/INMED Marseille in France, Hanganu-Opatz defended her PhD thesis in 2002 to continue her exploration of developing neural networks soon after.

Career
In 2017, Optaz became the leader of the Institute for Developmental Neurophysiology at the University Medical Center of Hamburg-Eppendorf. In 2022, she would go on to become the Director of the Hamburg Center of Excellence. She is the recipient of Emmy Noether Grant (2008) and an ERC Consolidator grant. Hanganu-Opatz recevied the Du Bois Reymond prize of the German Physiological Society in 2008. She is the coordinator of DFG Priority Program 1665 and the Research Unit 5159 and a member of the FENS Committee of Higher Education and Training Committee (CHET) at the FENS forum. Her research combines electrophysiological methods and optogenetics with imaging and behavioral assessments to study the role of early network oscillations in the development of cognition and sensory perception, uni- and multisensory processing and ontogeny, as well as pathophysiology of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders.

Awards and Honors
Dagmar Eissner Award (2003): Ileana Hanganu-Opatz was awarded the Dagmar Eissner Award in 2003 for her pioneering PhD work focused on brain wiring and cortical development. This award acknowledged her early, significant contributions to neurophysiology, particularly in understanding the mechanisms that underpin brain function during development.

FENS Excellence Grant (2006): In 2006, she received the FENS Excellence Grant from the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies. This grant acknowledged her significant research contributions to the understanding of the development of neuronal networks, specifically her work on the cellular interactions and functional communications critical for the development and maturation of prefrontal-hippocampal networks essential for mnemonic abilities.

Du Bois Reymond Award (2008): The Du Bois-Reymond Award was conferred upon Hanganu-Opatz in 2008 by the German Society of Physiology. This award recognized her outstanding and independent scientific achievements in physiology, particularly her research contributions to electrophysiology and its relevance to neurological disorders.

Emmy Noether Grant (2009): The Emmy Noether Grant was awarded to her in 2009 by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), which supports highly qualified early-career researchers. This grant recognized her potential for leading a research group and for conducting innovative and impactful research in neuroscience.

FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence Membership (2014): In 2014, Hanganu-Opatz became a member of the FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence. This membership is awarded to neuroscientists who have made significant contributions to the field and are deemed to have the potential for future excellence in neuroscience research.

ERC Consolidator Grant (2015): The ERC Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council was awarded to her in 2015. This grant supported her ambitious research on the development and function of neuronal networks, specifically focusing on how early network oscillations contribute to the development of cognitive behaviors and the mechanics underlying neuropsychiatric disorders. This grant is aimed at supporting groundbreaking research on cellular substrate of abnormal network maturation in neuropsychiatric disorders.

Selected Publications
 Articles 


 * Dupont, E., Hanganu, I., Kilb, W. et al. Rapid developmental switch in the mechanisms driving early cortical columnar networks. Nature 439, 79–83 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04264
 * Hanganu, I. L., Ben-Ari, Y., & Khazipov, R. (2006). Retinal waves trigger spindle bursts in the neonatal rat visual cortex. The Journal of neuroscience: the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 26(25), 6728–6736. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0752-06.2006
 * Yang, J. W., Hanganu-Opatz, I. L., Sun, J. J., & Luhmann, H. J. (2009). Three patterns of oscillatory activity differentially synchronize developing neocortical networks in vivo. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 29(28), 9011–9025. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5646-08.2009
 * Brockmann, M. D., Pöschel, B., Cichon, N., & Hanganu-Opatz, I. L. (2011). Coupled oscillations mediate directed interactions between prefrontal cortex and hippocampus of the neonatal rat. Neuron, 71(2), 332–347. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2011.05.041