Patrick Freund

Professor Dr. Patrick Freund is a leading academic in neurophysics and spinal cord injury research at the University of Zurich, heading the Spinal Cord Injury Center at Balgrist University Hospital. His work focuses on developing MRI biomarkers for neurological disorders and optimizing high-resolution imaging techniques for spinal cord and brain studies.

• Education: MD (2015), PhD (2008) from University of Zurich; PostDoc at UCL (2008-2011)
• Awards: IRP Schellenberg Price (2020), Best Review Paper in Spinal Cord (2020)

Research interests include spinal cord plasticity, neuroimaging translation from animal models to humans, and cortical reorganization post-injury. He collaborates with institutions like MPI Leipzig and UCL London. Current grants include EU Horizon 2020 and Swiss National Science Foundation funding.

Labs/Teams: Active in Balgrist's neuroimaging group and contributes to the NISCI multi-center clinical trial. His work bridges preclinical and clinical MRI applications to accelerate therapeutic validation.