Anna-Sophia-Wahl

Anna-Sophia Wahl


Prof. Dr. Dr. Anna-Sophia Wahl,Principal investigator

I am a board certified psychiatrist with both clinical training in neurology and psychiatry as well as a neuroscientist with expertise in neuronal repair, stroke and dementia. In 2019 I started to build my own team as junior group leader at the Brain Research Institute, University of Zurich. Since 07/2022 I have accepted an associate professorship for neuroanatomy at LMU Munich with a dual affiliation as principal investigator at the ISD. With my team I am developing animal models – using a combination of chronic in-vivo 2photon imaging in mice and deep learning to unveil causal relationships between neuronal coding and the behavioural phenotype in health and disease.

We still know very little of the complex spatial and temporal dynamics of the brain state after stroke and this has prevented us from developing successful treatment options which are able to causally interact with intrinsic repair mechanisms to restore lost or impaired function after stroke. With our research we provide an experimental pipeline to break the ground – not only revealing novel pharmacological targets but also for studying the efficiency of different pharmaceutical compounds or translational stimulation approaches to promote neuronal repair and rewiring after CNS injury such as stroke. 

Personal data:

Anna-Sophia Wahl, MD PhD

Academic training

2012: American Medical State Examination USMLE Step II

2010: Final year rotation at the Department of Neurology, Columbia University, New York, USA

2010: Final year rotation in internal medicine/ cardiology at the Swiss Heart Center, Bern, Switzerland

2009: Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA

2007-2011: Participant of the MD/PhD Program at Heidelberg University, studying biology to a bachelor`s equivalent

2004 – 2011: Medical Studies at Heidelberg University 

Academic and scientific degrees

2011-2014: PhD (summa cum laude) at the Brain Research Institute, ETH and University, Zurich, Switzerland; Supervisor: Prof. Dr. M. Schwab

2007-2009: MD thesis (magna cum laude) at the Interdisciplinary Center of Neurosciences, Heidelberg; Supervisor: Prof. Dr. H. Bading

Professional career since graduation:

Since 07/2022: Professor for neuroanatomy (W2, tenure track) at LMU Munich

Since 01/2019: Junior Group Leader at the Brain Research Institute, Department Neurophysiology (Head: Prof. F. Helmchen), University of Zurich; Principal Investigator at the Center for Neuroscience Zurich;

2016-2020: Resident in Psychiatry/ Clinical scientist at the Central Institute of Mental Health (ZI), Mannheim, University of Heidelberg (Head: Prof. Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg); Board certified psychiatrist and psychotherapist since 02/2021;

2015-2016: Postdoctoral fellow at the Brain Research Institute, ETH and University Zurich, Group Prof. Martin Schwab

2015: Resident in Neurology, University Hospital Zurich

Honors:

2022: SyNergy Professorship “Neuroanatomy”, Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology

2021: Research Grant Synapsis Foundation, Demenz Forschung Schweiz

2020: Research Grant Hurka Foundation, Zurich, Switzerland

2020: Research Grant Swiss Natonal Science Foundation (No. 192678)

2019: Research Grant Novartis Foundation for biomedical research

2018: Wrangell-Habilitation Scholarship

2018: Branco Weiss Fellowship

2017: Junior Research Award of the Journal Brain Sciences.

2015: Finalist of the FENS-Kavli PhD Prize

2014: Prize of the Faculty of Science, University of Zurich for an excellent PhD thesis

2014: Best publication award 2014 of the Swiss Society of Neuroscience

2012-2014: Several travel grants of the Center for Neuroscience Zurich (ZNZ), Swiss Physiological society and Swiss Society of Neuroscience (SSN) for neuroscience conferences.

2007-2011: Scholarship of the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes)

2007: Participation in the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting 2007 upon nomination by the Medical Faculty of Heidelberg and a selection process of 20 000 applicants worldwide, sponsored by the Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation.

2005-2011: Scholarship of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation

2004: Prize of the German Physical Society for excellent achievements in physics in the A-level, School prize for German and the Natural Sciences in the A-level