Paola Anna Erba

President, European Association of Nuclear Medicine

Prof. Paola Anna Erba is Associated Professor in Nuclear Medicine and Diagnostic Imaging at the Medical Faculty of Bicocca University, Chair of the Nuclear Medicine department of the ASST Papa Giovanni XXIII in Bergamo. She is also affiliated with the Department of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging at the University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands.

She graduated at the Medical Faculty of Insubria University in Varese, then she got a Specialization in Nuclear Medicine at the University in Pisa, in Clinical Biochemistry at the University of Rome Tor Vergata and a PhD in “Imaging Cardiovalscular Infection” at the University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands. From 2022 to 2022 she was Associated Professor in Nuclear Medicine at the departments of Translational Research and New Technologies in Medicine working at the Regional Center of Nuclear Medicine at the University Hospital in Pisa. She was also the Vice Director of the Nuclear Medicine Residency Program from 2016 to 2022.

Her research interest broadly covers the infection and inflammation field as well as oncology. Her main area of interest are cardiovascular infections a field where her work has resulted into the introduction of multimodality imaging in the clinical guideline in infectious endocarditis and CIEDs infections. In oncology, her research area is represented by the validation of new targets/probes for radioimmunoscintigraphy/radioimmuno PET and radioimmunotherapy also by conduction translational-early phase in human clinical study. After her experience within European COST actions (BM0607, Targeted Radionuclide Therapy (TRNT) and D38, Metal-Based Systems for
Molecular Imaging Application) she successfully brought in a Phase I clinical Trial supported by ERA-net TRANSCAN JTC 2011 on Medullary Thyroid Cancer, which she coordinated as PI, a new molecular probe for this rare cancer. Her work in patients with oligometastatic cancer, funded by a MoH Grant and a AIRC grant has recently demonstrated the fundamental role of imaging for patients management and prognosis and founded the first “National Oligometastatic BioImaging Bank” which aim to identify imaging biomarkers to advance the understanding of oligometastatic cancer by the quantitative description of disease anatomical, physiological and biochemical properties through multi-modal imaging and its integration/data fusion with pathology (disease phatophenotyping).

She is an active member of the Italian Association of Nuclear Medicine (AIMN) and the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) where she served as Education Chair of the European School of Multimodality Imaging and Therapy (ESMIT) 2019-2022, President Elect 2023-2025 and where she is currently serving as President 2025-2026. In this respect she has very recently been awarded with a Pfizer Independent Education Grant 2020-2021 entitled “European Increasing Awareness of Nuclear Scintigraphy in Cardiac Amyloidosis (EURO-LEARN)”. Within EANM she also led WP2 of the Erasmus + project“ RadioLigand Therapy (RLT) Academy” and she is now actively involved in the Rhythm Project.

Within ECO she was consortium member of the INTERACT-EUROPE – Innovative collaboration for Inter-specialty cancer training across Europe - EU4Health Program (EU4H). She is currently advisory Board of the INTERACT-EUROPE-100 and co-chair of the ECO Women and Cancer workstream. She is also IAEA lecturer and consultant.

During the years of her clinical and research activities, Prof. Erba has promoted several interdisciplinary clinical studies, creating a network of young and talented investigators with local, national and international colleagues to draw effective way for reaching international visibility and building national and international networks with joint activities, publications and patents. Prof. Erba is author of 4 thesis dissertations, more than 252 Original Scientific Papers (@ December 2025 Scopus H index 45, 12047 citations) and/or case reports published on peer-reviewed international journals, more than 150 abstracts in Congress Proceedings and invited speakers at several scientific national and international meetings. Editor of 5 books and 62 book chapters.

Updated: September 2025