Fabrizio Tagliavini

Key facts

• He was last and corresponding author of the phase 2 randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial of doxycycline in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, published in Lancet Neurology 13(2):150-158 on 8 January 2014 online; the correspondence address in the record is at the Carlo Besta domain, and he is author 36 of 36 behind first author Stephane Haik.
• That trial gave 100 mg of doxycycline a day or placebo to 121 patients with sporadic or genetic CJD until death, was stopped for futility at the first interim analysis, and found no survival difference (hazard ratio 1.1, 95 percent confidence interval 0.8 to 1.7, p = 0.50). Its funders were the Italian Medicines Agency, the Italian Ministry of Health, AIEnP and the French Ministry of Health.
• The Italian arm is registered as EudraCT 2006-001858-27 with the Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta as non-commercial sponsor; the Italian Medicines Agency authorised it on 21 June 2006 after a favourable ethics committee opinion on 18 May 2006, with 60 subjects planned in Italy. The French arm is EudraCT 2007-005553-34.
• As last author of a PNAS paper on 29 July 2002 he reported that tetracycline and doxycycline reduce the protease resistance of PrPSc from variant CJD and BSE material in a dose dependent way, and that treating a scrapie inoculum with tetracycline delayed onset and prolonged survival in hamsters.
• He co-authored the 2008 PLoS One study in which a single intramuscular dose of doxycycline prolonged median survival in scrapie infected hamsters by 64 percent, and repeated intraperitoneal dosing by 25 to 81 percent, while intracerebroventricular infusion of liposome encapsulated drug gained only about 8 to 10 percent.
• He is a co-author of the 2015 Prion paper setting out the design of the doxycycline prevention study in asymptomatic carriers of the fatal familial insomnia mutation: 100 mg a day for ten years in carriers over 42, judged against historical incidence because a randomised placebo controlled design was considered ethically unfeasible.
• He is third and last author, with Gianluigi Forloni and Ignazio Roiter, of the February 2019 review of clinical trials of prion disease therapeutics in Current Opinion in Pharmacology 44:53-60, which argued that sensitive detection of prion aggregates for early biomarkers and immunotherapy are the openings for prevention. His affiliation on that paper is the Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta.
• His early prion work was on the amyloid of Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker disease: he was first author of the 1991 EMBO Journal paper showing that the main amyloid component in the Indiana kindred is an 11 kilodalton prion protein fragment starting at residue 58, and first author of the 1994 Cell paper showing that the smallest amyloid subunit comes only from the mutant allele.
• Europe PMC indexes 203 records for the author string Tagliavini F with prion or Creutzfeldt terms, and 77 for GSS or the 106-126 peptide; only two of those records fall in 2024 to 2026, both published in Acta Neuropathologica in 2026.
• In the February 2026 Acta Neuropathologica paper on the D178N prion protein mutation, first author Antonio Masone and last author Roberto Chiesa, his affiliation is given as the Neuropathology Unit of Carlo Besta; co-authors include Christina Orru and Byron Caughey of the Rocky Mountain Laboratories and Joaquin Castilla.
• In the June 2026 Acta Neuropathologica paper on prion like transmission of human amyloid beta to bank voles, led by the Istituto Superiore di Sanita group of Michele Di Bari, Romolo Nonno and Umberto Agrimi, his affiliation is given as the Scientific Directorate of Carlo Besta, and Fabio Moda is a co-author.
• The Carlo Besta scientific directorate page, read on 2026-10-21, names Giuseppe Lauria Pinter as scientific director and does not mention him; the institute's pathology and neuropathology unit page, read the same day, names Valeria Barresi as unit director, does not name him and does not mention prion diseases.
• A 2023 Molecular Psychiatry paper on an amyloid beta variant peptide gives his affiliation as Neurology V, Neuropathology Unit, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Via Celoria 11, Milan.

Timeline

1. 1991First author in the EMBO Journal on the 11 kilodalton prion protein fragment that forms GSS amyloid.
2. 1993Last author of the Nature paper on the neurotoxicity of PrP 106-126.
3. 1994First author in Cell showing GSS amyloid carries only mutant allele prion protein peptides.
4. 2000First author in the Journal of Molecular Biology on tetracycline reverting the protease resistance of PrPSc.
5. 2002Last author in PNAS on tetracyclines reducing prion infectivity in hamsters.
6. 2006Favourable ethics committee opinion for the Italian doxycycline trial.
7. 2006Italian Medicines Agency authorises the doxycycline trial with Carlo Besta as sponsor.
8. 2007The Italian trial record is entered in EudraCT.
9. 2008Co-author of the PLoS One study of doxycycline in peripheral and intracerebral prion infection in hamsters.
10. 2014Doxycycline CJD trial published online in Lancet Neurology with him as last and corresponding author.
11. 2015Co-author of the Prion design paper for the FFI doxycycline prevention study.
12. 2019Last author of the Current Opinion in Pharmacology review of prion therapeutic trials.
13. 2023Co-author in Molecular Psychiatry with a Neurology V, Neuropathology Unit affiliation at Besta.
14. 2026Co-author of the Acta Neuropathologica paper on D178N prion strain properties, affiliation Neuropathology Unit, Besta.
15. 2026Co-author of the Acta Neuropathologica paper on amyloid beta transmission to bank voles, affiliation Scientific Directorate, Besta.
16. 2026Besta scientific directorate and neuropathology pages read; neither names him.