Isidro Ferrer

Key facts

• His Academia Europaea profile (member since 2018, Physiology and Neuroscience section, page last changed 14 June 2021) lists him as founder and director of the Institute of Neuropathology and Brain Bank at Bellvitge University Hospital from 1996 to 2016, founder and scientific director of the HUB-ICO-IDIBELL Biobank from 2011 to 2016, and senior clinical neuropathologist at Bellvitge from 2016.
• The same profile lists him as full professor of pathology at the University of Barcelona from 1996, coordinator of neuropathology groups at IDIBELL from 2004, at CIBERNED from 2012 and at the University of Barcelona Institute of Neurosciences from 2014, all shown as ongoing as of the 2021 page date.
• Earlier roles on the profile include coordinator of the former Spanish neurological diseases research network CIEN (2008 to 2010) and University of Barcelona vice-rector for science policy (2005 to 2007).
• A March 2026 Acta Neuropathologica paper lists him as Emeritus Professor at the University of Barcelona, while his 2025 review and the 2026 VPSPr report still list University of Barcelona and CIBERNED, with Bellvitge-IDIBELL on the VPSPr paper.
• His 2025 single-author review in Subcellular Biochemistry states that definitive diagnosis of human prion disease is postmortem, that premortem diagnosis rests on a positive PMCA or RT-QuIC mainly in CSF, that markers such as 14-3-3, tau and total PrP help to rule out other diseases with variable accuracy, and that PrPSc seeding activity in several tissues requires biosafety precautions.
• He coauthored the 2026 report of two new variably protease-sensitive prionopathy cases from Navarra with Castilla's CIC bioGUNE group and the Vienna reference centre (online 27 December 2025, print April 2026).
• He coauthored the 2022 description of sporadic CJD VM1 as a new subtype: six codon 129 MV cases with type 1 PrPSc from Catalonia and Italy, resembling VV1, with mean duration 20.5 months against 3.5 months for MM1 and MV1.
• With the Llorens group and Inga Zerr's Goettingen centre he coauthored a 2020 study of 23 iatrogenic CJD samples from seven national surveillance centres, which found sporadic CJD biomarker cut-offs gave similar sensitivity, and a 2019 pilot study of plasma total PrP in 520 people that found raised levels in sporadic CJD and in all genetic prion disease mutations studied.
• He is a coauthor of the 2021 Acta Neuropathologica TREM2 paper, which found CSF sTREM2 raised in sporadic, E200K, V210I and iatrogenic CJD but not in fatal familial insomnia, with CIBERNED, IDIBELL, Goettingen, ISS Rome and ISCIII coauthors.
• In 2020 to 2026 author-name searches, about ten of 53 prion-term hits concern human prion disease; most of his recent output is on tau seeding and Alzheimer disease.
• On 2024 to 2026 publication affiliations he is one of the few CIBERNED-affiliated authors with human prion disease work.

Timeline

1. 1996Founds the Institute of Neuropathology and Brain Bank at Bellvitge University Hospital and becomes full professor of pathology at the University of Barcelona.
2. 2004Starts coordinating the IDIBELL Neuropathology group.
3. 2011Founds the HUB-ICO-IDIBELL Biobank as scientific director (to 2016).
4. 2012Starts coordinating the CIBERNED Neuropathology group.
5. 2016Director role at the Institute of Neuropathology and Brain Bank ends; listed as senior clinical neuropathologist; one excerpt says he retired from the hospital.
6. 2019Plasma total PrP pilot study published online.
7. 2020Iatrogenic CJD biomarker study published.
8. 2021TREM2 in prion disease paper published.
9. 2021Academia Europaea profile last changed.
10. 2022Sporadic CJD VM1 subtype paper published.
11. 2025Single-author review of fluid biomarkers and biosafety in human prion disease.
12. 2025VPSPr two-case report published online (print 2026-04-01).
13. 2026Listed as Emeritus Professor, University of Barcelona, on an Acta Neuropathologica paper.