Franc Llorens

Key facts

• Co-recipient with Inga Zerr of a 2021 CJD Foundation research grant titled Implementation of a blood-based biomarker test for sporadic CJD in clinical practice, listed under CIBERNED (Spain) and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases.
• The grant aimed to build a composite blood test from plasma t-tau, NfL and GFAP, using samples from the German National CJD Surveillance Centre biobank; the project page, posted 2026-01-09, gives no amount and no results.
• Held a 2005 PhD from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and led a CIBERNED group on fluid biomarkers for neurodegenerative dementias using multiplex methods; public profiles list him as a CIBERNED senior researcher.
• Publication affiliations combine the Goettingen National Reference Center for TSE Surveillance (Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Goettingen), CIBERNED (Carlos III Institute, Madrid) and IDIBELL (Hospitalet de Llobregat).
• Last author of the 2022 Brain study of CSF biomarkers in 302 genetic prion disease patients from 11 centres, which found high sensitivity of 14-3-3, t-tau and alpha-synuclein in E200K and V210I carriers but low sensitivity in GSS, and proposed mutation-specific cutoffs.
• Coauthor of 2022 work showing plasma NfL separates fatal familial insomnia patients from controls and validating plasma and CSF NfL as an early marker in sporadic CJD (a paper also funded in part by the CJD Foundation).
• Last author of a 2021 study in which plasma NfL and t-tau each reached an AUC of about 0.93 for CJD against other dementias, with plasma t-tau linked to disease duration.
• Coauthor of the 2021 Lancet Neurology biomarker and diagnostic guidelines for sporadic CJD.
• Earlier lead or coauthor work covers a prognostic survival model for sporadic CJD, plasma and CSF total prion protein, iatrogenic CJD biomarkers, and CSF PrP quantification as a tool for drug development with Sonia Vallabh and Eric Minikel.
• No indexed prion or dementia publications from 2023 to 2026 were found in PubMed or Europe PMC, and his Google Scholar list ends in 2022.

Timeline

1. 2005PhD from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
2. 2013Starts at the University of Goettingen (to 2018), working with the National Reference Center for TSE Surveillance.
3. 2018Moves to Barcelona (University of Barcelona, IDIBELL, CIBERNED).
4. 2020Prognostic model for survival in sporadic CJD published in Alzheimers and Dementia.
5. 2021CJD Foundation grant with Inga Zerr for a blood-based biomarker test for sporadic CJD.
6. 2021Lancet Neurology biomarker and diagnostic guidelines for sporadic CJD published, with Llorens as coauthor.
7. 2021Plasma NfL and t-tau study in sporadic CJD published in Alzheimers Research and Therapy.
8. 2022Brain study of CSF biomarkers in genetic prion diseases published, with Llorens as last author.
9. 2022Plasma and CSF NfL validation in sporadic CJD published in Molecular Neurobiology.
10. 2022Dies, according to a 2023 news report.
11. 2026CJD Foundation posts the project summary for the 2021 grant.