Emiliano Biasini

Key facts

• The CJD Foundation profile lists a biology degree from Roma Tre (1999), a pharmacology specialisation at the Mario Negri Institute (2004), a PhD in applied genetics from La Sapienza (2005), and postdoctoral work at Washington University and Boston University from 2005 to 2013.
• His US papers carry Washington University School of Medicine (2007) and then Boston University School of Medicine (2012 to 2013) affiliations, with David A. Harris as senior author; Roberto Chiesa of Mario Negri co-authored the 2007 and 2013 papers.
• First author work from that period includes a 2007 study showing that infectious and non-infectious aggregates of a mutant PrP look the same biochemically but only the infectious form seeds misfolding, a 2012 Trends in Neurosciences review on the normal roles of PrP, and a 2013 Journal of Neuroscience paper showing that a PrP deletion mutant makes neurons more sensitive to glutamate damage.
• In 2012 he and Harris wrote an editorial arguing for targeting the cellular prion protein itself to treat neurodegeneration, the idea behind his later drug work.
• From 2015 he is senior author on the Trento anti-prion compound papers, including the 2017 ChemMedChem screen and the January 2021 Communications Biology paper that introduced PPI-FIT.
• He has received CJD Foundation grants in 2015 (Pharmacological Chaperones for the Cellular Prion Protein), 2019 (Katie (Pohl) Dopirak Memorial Grant) and 2021 (Pharmacological Degraders for the Cellular Prion Protein, under the Harvey L. Hall and Sherry Maxwell Fabian memorial grants).
• The 2021 grant page states the aim of improving the PPI-FIT compound's drug properties so that it could one day be tested in people with prion disease; no amount is given.
• His 2019 sole author comment in Nature Biomedical Engineering acknowledges Telethon grant TCP14009 and gives the Dulbecco Telethon Laboratory affiliation.
• The CJD Foundation page lists him as co-founder and scientific advisor of Sibylla Biotech since 2017, author of 55 papers and inventor on 3 patents on treatments and drug discovery methods for neurodegenerative disease.
• Through EU-OPENSCREEN he ran a chemoproteomics project, CHEMPRION, at the Technical University of Munich to find the protein target of compounds that block mutant PrP toxicity; three high affinity binders were found and one picked as the likely main target, with validation planned.
• He is one of six members of the AFIFF scientific committee, listed as university professor and researcher at CIBIO, Trento.
• His 2025 and 2026 output includes senior authorship of a 2025 book chapter on therapeutic paths in human prion diseases and a June 2026 review on prion drug discovery, and co-authorship of 2026 PNAS work with Jesus Requena on how PrP unfolds before conversion.

Timeline

1. 2005PhD in applied genetics, La Sapienza, Rome; start of US postdoctoral period.
2. 2007First author J Neurochem paper on infectious and non-infectious mutant PrP aggregates, Washington University.
3. 2011First author Trends in Neurosciences review on PrP physiology and disease, Boston University.
4. 2013First author J Neurosci paper on mutant PrP and glutamate excitotoxicity.
5. 2015Associate professor at CIBIO, University of Trento; CJD Foundation grant on pharmacological chaperones for PrP.
6. 2017Co-founds Sibylla Biotech.
7. 2019Sole author Nature Biomedical Engineering comment on a designer chaperone against prion diseases.
8. 2021CJD Foundation grant for pharmacological degraders of PrP.
9. 2021Senior author of the PPI-FIT paper in Communications Biology.
10. 2023Speaker at the EU-OPENSCREEN-DRIVE final meeting in Berlin about the CHEMPRION project.
11. 2026Senior author of a review on prion drug discovery in Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery.