Professor Ioana Berindan-Neagoe (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5828-1325) is a Corresponding Member of the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences and a Professor of Medical Biotechnology at Iuliu Hațieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy (UMFCN) in Cluj-Napoca. UMFCN is currently recognised by various rankings as one of the finest medical universities in the country and among the leading universities in Romania.

She began her early career as a young scientist at The Oncology Institute “Prof. Dr. Ion Chiricuta” in the Department of Experimental Pathology. In 2000, she was part of the team that secured a World Bank grant, enabling her to establish the first Molecular Biology Department in the Oncology Institute and one of the first in Romania. She has focused on oncology, developing new cancer diagnosis and therapy concepts throughout her career. Professor Berindan-Neagoe possesses impressive managerial experience, having secured over 40 national and international grants, with 8 in European Framework Programmes (including Horizon) and one INTERRegio Danube grant involving 24 partners. She was conducting several significant projects, including two Marie Skłodowska-Curie Rise projects to train young investigators. Professor Berindan-Neagoe began conducting scientific projects in cellular and molecular biology, particularly in cell adhesion molecules (her PhD field of interest). During these years, she developed the Oncology Research Platform at the Oncology Institute. She served as the Scientific Director of the Oncology Institute, promoting scientific activity from 2009 to 2021.

In 2006, she started as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Immunology at the UMFCN, where she developed the first microarray laboratory in Romania. Dr. Berindan-Neagoe further developed the omics field within the Research Center for Functional Genomics, Biomedicine, and Translational Medicine ( actually Department of Genomics), which she built between 2010 and 2024 with financial support from POSCCE and POC.

In 2014, she became a Habilitated Professor of Medicine in the Doctoral School, where she developed Medical Biotechnology as a new discipline for PhD students. She also served as the UMPh Director of the Research, Development, and Innovation Department for eight years until 10 June 2020.

In 2013, she was selected by the Fulbright Committee and received a Fulbright Senior Fellow Award 2013. She had the opportunity to spend two and a half years at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, USA, one of the most prestigious cancer institutions in the world. After completing one year of the Fulbright fellowship in the field of ncRNAs and cancer, she received for 18 months the Visiting Professor position in the same institution. During both Fulbright Fellow and Visiting Professor, she worked in the Department of Experimental Therapeutics in the field of microRNAs in cancer. She benefited from multiple trainings in France, Belgium, and the USA.

She is the National Expert at the European Commission in the SubGroup Cancer. Professor Berindan-Neagoe is also a National Commission of Medical Genetics member at the Ministry of Health.

Professor Berindan-Neagoe was awarded for excellence in research by AdAstra in 2018 in Life Science. She is the author of over 450 full papers published in WOS journals with an Impact Factor, including papers in CA Journal for Clinicians, Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, Nature Communications, PNAS, Molecular Cell, Molecular Cancer Research, and Clinical Cancer Research.

Hirsch’s index stands at 69 (Google Scholar), 59 (SCOPUS), and 57 in Web of Science. According to the AD Scientific Index 2024, she is ranked as the best scientist at the university and the leading scholar in the country in molecular biology and genetics.

Developing clinical trials and research projects within the consortium