Giovanni B Frisoni CURRICULUM VITAE - centro alzheimer

“Google for brain imaging”, where neuroscientists worldwide will be able to find the world’s largest
image databases on Alzheimer’s, algorithm tools to extract diagnostic and progression tracking
markers, and adequate computational resources.
This vision has been further strengthened with the IMI PHARMACOG – Prediction of Cognitive
Properties of New Drug Candidates for NeuroDegenerative Diseases in Early Clinical Development
project. This is a € 22M study where I am leading the largest workpackage (€ M 4.5) on the
development of markers for disease modifying drugs in humans, representing the final success of
developing a large ADNI‐based study in Europe (European ADNI). The image data that will be collected
in the context of the PHARMACOG‐European ADNI initiative will contribute to further expand the base
of data that neuGRID (and what will come after neuGRID) can accommodate and process.
In this period, I have carefully kept thriving my traditional line of research on Alzheimer’s and cognitive
disturbances. I have been the first Italian to publish on amyloid imaging (#P188 in Neurology), the only
with a say in major journals (#E7) despite amyloid imaging has not yet landed in Italy, the first to show
evidence of validity of the new revised criteria for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease worldwide
(#P197), and, to the best of my knowledge, the first to test the new revised criteria in a clinical service
(the “Translational Outpatient Memory Clinic” at the IRCCS‐FBF) (#P197). I have given further fuel to my
translational approach to the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s with the launch of an international effort
aimed at developing standardized operational procedures for the measurement of hippocampal
atrophy (Harmonization of Protocols for the Manual Tracing of the Hippocampus Development and
Validation of a Unified Standard Protocol: An EADC‐ADNI Joint Effort), whose vision is to turn
hippocampal volumetry from a diagnostic procedure feasible in few highly specialized research setting
into a routinely applicable diagnosic exam.
With the appointment as Head of the Psychogeriatric Ward in 2005, I have opened a new line of
research on psychiatric diseases. The clinical population of the ward is made of scientifically dejected
patients, i.e. psychiatric patients (mainly schizophrenics) over 65 years of age, with decades of the most
diverse pharma and non‐pharma treatments. By applying the analytical tools successfully used in
patients with neurodegenerative disorders, I have been able to describe their brain structural features
in a paper published in Biological Psychiatry (#P189), and more manuscripts are currently in
preparation. Moreover, thanks to the use of a creative approach to study hundreds of healthy persons
with MR imaging, my research group has described the structural features of a normal personality trait,
i.e. alexithymia (#P167).
8. CLINICAL
Clinical positions
2005‐2010: Head of the Psychogeriatric Ward at the IRCCS (Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere
Scientifico – Scientific Institute of Research and Care) Fatebenefratelli Hospital, Brescia – FBF, a long‐
term 40‐bed ward devoted to elderly psychiatric patients with behavioral disturbances. The medical
staff is made of trained and specialized physicians (2 psychiatrists and one geriatrician).
2000‐2004: temporary interruption of clinical duties following a request from the Scientific
Direction of the IRCCS‐FBF to devote up to 85% of my time to research, aiming to foster domestic
scientific productivity. In this period, I have continued seeing outpatients 2 half days per week.
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