Alison Green

Key facts

• Principal investigator of the RT-QuIC optimisation, harmonisation and standardisation consortium, funded April 2012 to December 2015 and based at the Edinburgh unit.
• The consortium ran two workshops, trained staff and shipped reagents to establish the assay in Rome, Milan, Bologna, Antwerp, Paris and Munich, then ran two international ring trials among 11 laboratories that found near complete agreement.
• That project reported sensitivity between 73 and 91 percent and specificity of 100 percent across laboratories; CSF RT-QuIC entered the European CJD Surveillance Network criteria for sporadic CJD in 2017.
• An ECDC-funded ring trial of 13 laboratories was set up in October 2019 and a World Health Organization study of the assay's effect on surveillance had been commissioned.
• Wrote the 2018 Practical Neurology review reporting 92 percent sensitivity and 100 percent specificity at the Edinburgh unit and advising clear, colourless CSF with white cell count under 10 x 10^6 per litre and total protein under 1 g per litre.
• Co-author, with Neil McKenzie and Lynne McGuire, of the ECDC technical report containing the laboratory SOP for the assay (version 1.0, February 2021).
• Worked with Bologna, the Rocky Mountain Laboratories group and Australian colleagues on the second-generation CSF RT-QuIC study listed on the Parchi publication page.
• Edinburgh authors including Green appear on the concordance study of CSF RT-QuIC across European national surveillance laboratories (European Journal of Neurology, 2022).
• Her unit's funding ended: the CJD Support Network reports the NCJDRSU, founded in 1990, ceased on 31 March 2025 after the NIHR declined to renew funding, and that funding for the follow-on diagnostic advisory service ends on 31 March 2026; both are secondary reports.
• What continues in Edinburgh: the UK National Reference RT-QuIC Testing Laboratory, which takes samples Monday to Friday with a required request form and reports electronically only since July 2025, plus a CJD pathology service; clinical advice for suspected cases is routed to the National Prion Clinic in London.
• The Edinburgh services page published 27 May 2026 does not name Alison Green.

Timeline

1. 2012Funding starts for the CSF RT-QuIC consortium she leads.
2. 2015Consortium funding period ends.
3. 2017CSF RT-QuIC added to European CJD Surveillance Network criteria for sporadic CJD.
4. 2018Practical Neurology RT-QuIC review published online.
5. 2019ECDC-funded 13-laboratory ring trial set up.
6. 2021ECDC laboratory SOP for RT-QuIC published with Green as co-author.
7. 2025National CJD Research and Surveillance Unit ceases to function.
8. 2025Edinburgh RT-QuIC laboratory moves to electronic-only reporting.
9. 2026Funding for the Edinburgh diagnostic advisory service ends.