Giovanni B Frisoni CURRICULUM VITAE - centro alzheimer

studies were aimed to standardize the then exquisitely subjective reading of imaging exams (e.g. #P28
in AJNR) and use imaging tools to improve diagnostic accuracy (e.g. #P31 in JNNP and P46 in
Neurology). On these issues, I was the pioneer in Italy and have summarized my achievements in the
field of imaging with non computational tools in an editorial appeared in the JNNP (#E2).
The “Alzheimer’s” period (late nineties to mid‐2000). In 1999, with the birth of the LENITEM, my
scientific interests have veered more strongly towards the translational application of imaging
techniques in the clinic. In the very early times of computational neuroscience, I have been the first in
Italy to apply voxel‐based morphometry to neurological patients (#P79) and adopt the more
sophisticated methods of cortical and hippocampal mapping (#R7 in Lancet Neurol, P127 in
NeuroImage, and P141 in Brain).
In this period, I have taken the lead of the Neuroimaging Interest Group of the EADC – European
Alzheimer’s Disease Consortium and produced a European consensus document on the use of
neuroimaging tools to rate key imaging features (#R8), brought the ADNI methods for multicentre MR
image acquisition from the US to Europe (#P164), and investigated the diagnostic and therapeutic
procedures of Italian dementia expert centres (#P177, P154, P133, P109, P87). Lastly, I have
summarized the relevant advances in dementia research of the year 2006 in the January 2007 issue of
The Lancet Neurology (#E6).
In 2003 I have been appointed Scientific Coordinator of AFaR – Associazione Fatebenefratelli per la
Ricerca. This is the scientific branch of the 25 Fatebenefratelli (Religious Order of St John of God) health
services in Italy. My mission was to promote evidence‐based medical care in the pilot Fatebenefratelli
hospital of San Maurizio Canavese, in the Turin area, where I have set up all the necessary procedures
and trained personnel to the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and other cognitive disorders with the
innovative use of imaging biomarkers (medial temporal and hippocampal atrophy based on high
resolution MR). Since then, physicians in charge use hippocampal volumetry as part of their clinical
assessment.
The “European period” (late‐2000). From 2005, I decidedly entered the arena of European projects. I
led my first FP project as a Principal Investigator in 2005 (ENIR – European NeuroImaging Repository,
www.centroalzheimer.it/ENIR.doc), aiming to develop the theoretical foundations for a Europe‐wide
infrastructure capable of storing and processing a vast amount of brain imaging data with sophisticated
computational algorithms. In that same year, talks were started between the European Alzheimer’s
Disease Consortium and the US ADNI – Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (www.adni‐
info.org) to explore the latitude for an extension of the ADNI to Europe, and I obtained funds from the
US Alzheimer’s Association to carry out the Pilot European Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
(pilot E‐ADNI) in 7 Alzheimer’s centres throughout Europe (http://www.centroalzheimer.it/E‐
ADNI_project.htm) in close connection with US ADNI.
In 2008 I obtained a € 2.8 M funding from FP7 for neuGRID ‐ A Grid‐Based e‐Infrastructure for Data
Archiving/Communication and Computationally Intensive Applications in the Medical Sciences
(www.neuGRID.eu). The project successfully concluded in January 2011, creating the necessary
conditions for two expansions: outGRID, a € 440 K project funded under EC FP7 (www.outGRID.eu)
aiming to make neuGRID interoperable with homologous infrastructures in the US and Canada and
neuGRID for users (N4U) which aims to provide neuroscientists with a Global Virtual Laboratory by
further developing and deploying the neuGRID infrastructure. The long term vision is to develop the
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