Miguel Calero

Key facts

• ORCID lists Calero at ISCIII since 20 November 2000 with no end date; the record has not been updated since 2018.
• In March 2020 he was described as ISCIII research professor, CIBERNED principal investigator and the person responsible for the national reference centre for molecular diagnosis of human TSE at ISCIII; he was named scientific director of Fundacion CIEN at the same time.
• In October 2020 press coverage of the first ENAC ISO 15189 accreditation for human TSE testing in Spain, covering CSF 14-3-3 and PRNP gene analysis, named him as director of the CNM spongiform encephalopathies laboratory.
• He directed or co-directed UFIEC from June 2014, became ISCIII deputy director general for applied services, training and research in January 2021, and returned to UFIEC as research professor in January 2025 (search excerpts only).
• His Fundacion CIEN scientific director role was provisional; in September 2021 Pascual Sanchez Juan took the post and Calero was called the former scientific director.
• He was last author of a 2008 Spanish reference centre study of 1,068 suspected sporadic CJD patients showing that the 14-3-3 test adds diagnostic weight, with predictive value depending strongly on the clinical suspicion.
• He coauthored the 2015 European validation of a 14-3-3 ELISA against western blot (88 percent sensitivity, 96 percent specificity in 231 sCJD and 2,035 control CSF samples) and the 2022 Brain study of CSF biomarkers in 302 genetic prion disease cases.
• He is a coauthor of the 2020 Lancet Neurology GWAS of 5,208 sporadic CJD cases (risk loci at PRNP, STX6 and GAL3ST1), the 2024 GWAS of survival and age at onset, and the 2025 Brain multiomic study of CJD risk genes.
• The 2019 Neurology age at onset paper lists him with a CNE epidemiologist under the label Spanish National Reference Center for CJD, ISCIII, and he coauthored the 2021 Spanish surveillance overview and the 2026 variant CJD surveillance paper.
• About 30 of 64 indexed papers matching his name and prion terms deal with prion disease, spanning CSF tests, PRNP genotyping, sporadic CJD susceptibility genes, surgical transmission risk and Spanish surveillance; recent output also includes Alzheimer genetics consortia.
• He was a Spanish coauthor of the 2009 European study of CSF biomarkers in 174 genetic TSE patients led from ISS Rome.

Timeline

1. 2000Joins ISCIII, per ORCID.
2. 2008Last author of the Spanish reference centre 14-3-3 diagnostic study.
3. 2014Starts directing or co-directing UFIEC.
4. 2020Named scientific director of Fundacion CIEN; described as responsible for the national TSE molecular diagnosis reference centre.
5. 2020Sporadic CJD GWAS in Lancet Neurology published with him as coauthor.
6. 2020ENAC accreditation of the CNM spongiform encephalopathies laboratory he directs announced.
7. 2021Becomes ISCIII deputy director general for applied services, training and research.
8. 2021Hands the Fundacion CIEN scientific director post to Pascual Sanchez Juan.
9. 2024GWAS of sporadic CJD survival and onset published.
10. 2025Returns to UFIEC as research professor.
11. 2026Variant CJD surveillance paper with him as coauthor published.