PRONIA Advisory Boards

PRONIA is supported by two advisory boards – the Scientific Advisory Board and the Ethical Advisory Board. These boards shall not only ensure the highest standard of research and monitor the progress of the project by taking part in the annual meetings, but will also ensure the compliance with all necessary ethical regulations. Whenever appropriate, they will consult the consortium and make recommendations on how to best improve project performance.

Scientific Advisory Board (SAB)

The PRONIA SAB consists of 6 experts representing the key aspects of project activities, as indicated by the Workpackages. As such, the Advisory Board Members represent leaders in the key areas of the project:

Neuroscience & Neuroimaging: Prof. Richard Frackowiak, Director, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Lausanne
General Psychiatry
- Prof. Danuta Wasserman, President of the European Psychiatric Association
- Prof. Wolfgang Maier, President of the German Association for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
Early Recognition of Psychoses: Prof. Frauke Schultze-Lutter, Child and Youth Psychiatric Department of the University of Bern
Translational Machine Learning: Prof. Christos Davatzikos, University of Pennsylvania
Genetics: Prof. Elisabeth Binder, Max-Planck-Institute of Psychiatry, Munich

Ethical Advisory Board (EAB)

The PRONIA EAB will be headed by Prof. Christiane Woopen, Head of the German Ethics Council. It consists of experienced researchers in the following fields: Ethics of Neuroscience and Psychiatric Research and Data Protection and Privacy. It also includes representatives of patient associations.

The current EAB team will be extended to include 1-2 researchers and representatives for each of the countries involved in the project. The current core team of PRONIA's Ethical Advisory Board is:

Prof. Dr. Christiane Woopen, Head of the German Ethics Council, Member of the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee, Professor of Ethics and Theory of Medicine at the University of Cologne. Prof. Woopen has a long-standing excellence in ethical questions arising from the clinical and scientific progress generated by the neuroscience and genetics field. She has contributed to and conducted several important studies into the ethical issues raised by genetic predictive testing, which were funded by the German Science Foundation and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. As Chair of the German Ethics Council she contributed to the development of legislation for the use of preimplantation diagnostics in Germany.
Prof. Dr. Dr. Tade Matthias Spranger, Professor at the Law Faculty of the University of Bonn in the areas of state and administrative law, European law and German and international law in biotechnology with a focus on "Regulation of biomedicine and gene technology".
Karl-Heinz Möhrmann, Vice President, German Federal Association of the Relatives of Mentally-ill Patients. The Association provides support and information for affected families at all levels of the healthcare system in order to improve the situation of the family members and patients suffering from mental illness.