Fabio Moda

Key facts

• The Besta laboratory medicine service, headed by Emilio Ciusani, lists him among its health executives; the same page says the service analyses brain biomarkers in suspected prion disease with seed amplification assays, RT-QuIC and PMCA in a dedicated BSL3 laboratory.
• His 2025 editor bio says he has worked at Besta since 2006, manages the BSL3 laboratory, runs diagnostic tests on CSF and brain tissue, completed a specialisation in clinical pathology and clinical biochemistry at the University of Pavia in 2022 and is an assistant professor at the University of Milan.
• He holds a 2007 master's degree in medical biotechnologies and molecular medicine and a PhD in translational and molecular medicine from the University of Milano-Bicocca (2011), and from 2011 trained in Houston at the University of Texas Health Science Center, optimising PMCA and RT-QuIC for prions in peripheral tissues.
• As first author of the August 2014 NEJM paper, with Claudio Soto as senior author, he reported prions in urine from 13 of 14 people with variant CJD and in none of 224 urine samples from people with other neurological diseases or healthy controls; the paper lists both the Houston Mitchell Center and Besta as his affiliations.
• He was a co-author of the December 2023 follow-up, which found urine prions in about a third of people with sporadic CJD, so the urine approach is much weaker for the sporadic form.
• He was senior author of the April 2017 Scientific Reports paper that found prion seeding activity in olfactory mucosa samples from people with FFI using PMCA and RT-QuIC, with no positives among controls with other dementias.
• He was senior author of the April 2021 eLife paper showing that PMCA products from FFI olfactory mucosa caused prion disease in transgenic mice; it lists funding to him from the Italian Ministry of Health (GR-2013-02355724), the BAND2015 call (Michael J. Fox Foundation with Alzheimer charities) and Euronanomed III (SPEEDY).
• He leads the Carlo Besta partner group, one of six, in ProFFIle, the JPND consortium coordinated by Roberto Chiesa at Mario Negri that tests seeding assays in blood, urine, olfactory mucosa and tears of FFI carriers; Besta presented the consortium poster at the November 2024 JPND symposium.
• He sits on the six member AFIFF scientific committee, described as a biotechnologist with a PhD in translational and molecular medicine at Besta.
• His work now spans other protein misfolding diseases: the Michael J. Fox Foundation lists a 2016 grant to him (Seeds of Dementia), and he is senior author of olfactory mucosa seeding papers for alpha-synuclein (2019) and TDP-43 (2025).
• In 2025 he co-edited with Giuseppe Legname of SISSA the Springer volume Biomarkers and Therapeutical Targets for Prion Diseases and was senior author of its chapters on seed amplification assays, RT-QuIC in peripheral tissues and PMCA.
• He co-authored the 2017 second generation CSF RT-QuIC paper led from Bologna, the 2020 iatrogenic CJD biomarker paper led from Goettingen and the April 2026 Besta case report of CJD first presenting like an inflammatory nerve disease.

Timeline

1. 2007Master's degree in medical biotechnologies and molecular medicine.
2. 2011PhD at Milano-Bicocca; moves to Houston for postdoctoral training.
3. 2012First author Brain Pathology paper identifying MM2 thalamic CJD as a distinct prion strain, with Tagliavini as senior author.
4. 2014First author NEJM paper on prions in urine in variant CJD.
5. 2015First author PLoS Pathogens paper on synthetic prions.
6. 2016Michael J. Fox Foundation grant, Seeds of Dementia.
7. 2017Senior author of the FFI olfactory mucosa seeding paper.
8. 2021Senior author of the eLife FFI olfactory mucosa transmission paper.
9. 2021ProFFIle recommended for JPND funding with his Besta group as partner.
10. 2022Specialisation in clinical pathology and clinical biochemistry, University of Pavia.
11. 2023Co-author of the sporadic CJD urine paper.
12. 2024ProFFIle poster presented by Besta at the JPND final symposium.
13. 2025Co-edited Springer volume on prion biomarkers and therapy targets published.
14. 2026Co-author of the Besta CJD case report.