Maria Teresa Ferretti
Clinical Development Lead
Vienna
Maria Teresa is a Neuroscientist and science advocate, bringing 20+ years of global experience in brain research to Syntropic.
“The first thing that drew me to science was my curiosity to understand the world, and the possibility of even changing the things around me”
Maria Teresa is a neuroscientist and science advocate, bringing 20 years of global experience in brain research to Syntropic Medical in her role of Clinical Development Lead.
Her passion for science was sparked during her childhood when she visited a relative who had developed parkinsonism. During a visit to the nursing home, she felt a powerful desire to understand what had gone wrong in the brain, what had caused this condition, and why no one could help.
This experience fueled her curiosity about the brain and its vulnerabilities, leading her to explore how neurological breakdowns can transform a person who was once fully functional and intellectually vibrant.
Maria Teresa gained a Master’s in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Cagliari, Italy, and a PhD in Pharmacology and Therapeutics from McGill University, Canada. She served as a postdoctoral researcher and group leader at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, in Professor Nitsch’s group, in the lab that discovered aducanumab, the first FDA approved treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.
In 2016, she co-founded the ‘Women’s Brain Project’, a non-profit exploring the impact of sex and gender on brain and mental health for precision medicine, where she served as Chief Scientific Officer.
What inspired you to co-found this project?
I co-founded the ‘Women’s Brain Project‘ with colleagues, building a wonderful team and a supportive community around it, which I am very proud of. The motivation came from recognizing a significant gap between the groundbreaking work happening in the lab and its impact on the public and policymakers. You can make incredible discoveries and publish extensively, but it means little if it doesn’t reach the public or inform policy. I realised that there was a lack of two-way communication: scientists often aren’t aware of the public’s specific needs, and exciting scientific discoveries are not implemented in clinical practice to support the society.
The project’s main focus was exploring sex and gender differences in brain and mental health disorders—a topic often overlooked in traditional research. The goal was to generate robust data to raise awareness and influence policy changes.
Founding the ‘Women’s Brain Project’ allowed Maria Teresa to bridge that gap, expanding her work beyond the lab to involve various stakeholders, such as patient organisations, policymakers, and NGOs. It became a mission to ensure better communication between science and society. This experience has allowed her to work with people with lived experience of brain and mental diseases on a number of projects, and convinced her of their crucial role in research. “I see myself as an ambassador, translating scientific insights into real-world impact”.
The desire to continue to be this powerful bridge led Maria Teresa to join Syntropic as Clinical Development Lead.
“I fell in love with science from the start. I knew Siegert’s group because of their work in microglia and because they were among the few scientists worldwide studying and publishing on sex and gender differences. When I had the opportunity to review his paper and discuss its findings with Dr. Venturino, he mentioned the idea of creating a company around the discovery. I found it absolutely amazing.
I was captivated by the potential to develop out of the lab something so simple, like a pair of goggles, that could help so many people everywhere. I felt I could play a role in making it happen.”
Maria Teresa has extensive experience working with a wide range of stakeholders, including patient organizations. She is faculty member of the Certificate for Advanced Studies in Gender Medicine at the University of Zurich, an affiliated researcher at the Center of Alzheimer Research at Karolinska, an External Teacher (as Privat Dozent) at the Medical University in Vienna and a Fellow of The European Academy of Neurology. She is currently supporting several patient-led and patient-focused initiatives, including ´Walking the Talk for Dementia´.
She excels at building networks and communities and is adept at communicating complex scientific concepts to non-scientists (including 2 Ted-X and 2 science-communication books for the laypublic). While she is a scientist at heart, she has a unique ability to connect with people, inspire and engage them, fostering collaboration. This is definitely a vital asset for Syntropic growth.
Want to connect with Maria Teresa? Reach out to info@syntropicmedical.com