Alexandru Calin, 6th year medical student at “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, has been working since 2008 at the Center for Excellence in Neuroscience - N. C. Paulescu laboratory, in the Romanian Group of Initiative in Neuroscience, the “Coma” team. Here, he developed research skills, critical thinking, team work skills and learned techniques of working with laboratory animals, data processing, analysis and communicating results.

In 2011-2012 academic year he won an Erasmus scholarship and chose to study medicine in Florence, Italy, where he had the chance to continue to build up his medical experience previously developed in Romania and abroad (Switzerland).

He is concentrated on monitoring the comatose brain but his area of interest is not limited to the central nervous system, therefore he worked on a mouse model of ALS in July 2011 at Panum Institute of Neuroscience and Pharmacology, “Peripheral nerve research laboratory”, Faculty of Health Sciences, Copenhagen University, Denmark.

In July-September 2012 he approached the clinical research field in conjunction with the fundamental sciences at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Division of Intraoperative Neurophysiology, Boston, USA, with the purpose of investigating the properties of cortical reactivity during peripheral nerve stimulation of patients in deep anesthetic-induced coma.

His integrated scientific endeavors were presented and rewarded with prizes at both national (The 3rd National Neuroscience Society of Romania Conference, Clinical Neurophysiology National Conference 2012 etc.) and international level (8th Forum of European Neuroscience, Barcelona, 2012 - he was the only Romanian applicant awarded by the International Brain Research Organization with a travel grant).

He is an acting member of the National Neuroscience Society of Romania and President of the Scientific Organization of Medical Students. The leadership experience allowed him to organize the most complex research school for students in Romania: Basic Research Skills.

Alexandru was awarded with the "Student of the Year in Romania" Prize for outstanding achievements. He is now one of the 5 students admitted in 2013, with studentship, to the Wellcome Trust 4-year Doctoral Programme in Neuroscience at University of Oxford.