Believing it into being

When Marta Moita first heard whispers of a neuroscience programme taking shape in Lisbon, disbelief was her first reaction. “It just didn’t seem possible,” she recalls. She was a young Principal Investigator (PI) who had returned to Portugal after years abroad, because behavioural neuroscience (her passion) simply didn’t exist here. “So the prospect of not just having a lab, but a whole programme doing circuits and behavioral neuroscience in Lisbon, with people I knew and admired… it was just difficult to assimilate. Was this really happening?”

That sense of wonder never quite left her. “For me, it was unbelievable luck and adventure,” she says, remembering the beginnings of what would become one of CF’s most defining scientific communities.

The neuroscience programme hadn’t yet been formalised, it began as an idea, a conversation where researchers imagined what such a programme might look like. “That was my first involvement,” she says. “Then it grew, and I became an official PI in 2008.”

Looking back, Marta describes her greatest contribution in simple terms: “I think it was to believe in it. We were going to make it happen.” She smiles. “We were young, confident, and didn’t really care how other people were doing it. We were just going to do it the way we thought it should be done. And that was important.”

There were moments of doubt, when the uncertainty of building something new felt overwhelming. “There were times when someone wanted to give up, but no one would let anyone else drop. We trusted each other, and we held it together.” Marta smiles and says she’d tell her younger self, “It will be okay.”

That spirit, of trust, shared purpose, and stubborn optimism, became the foundation of the neuroscience community at CF. “When you’re starting something big, with a lot of responsibility and uncertainty, it has to be fun. It has to be something you believe in, and it has to be a group of people who trust each other.” 

Beyond collective challenges, Marta faced a personal one, the pressure of being a scientist in a competitive world. “Sometimes I felt like a racehorse. Once you have an ERC [a prestigious European Research Council grant] or a Nature paper or some kind of VIP thing a lot of people start treating you differently and that’s very disappointing. Because you are the exact same scientist,” she says. “At some point, I realised I didn’t want to be in that race anymore. I needed to define my own rules of the game.” That realisation changed everything. “I remember giving a talk where I felt, for the first time, that I could fully assume responsibility for what I was saying. That talk was me.” It’s that clarity that continues to shape how Marta approaches science and community.

When asked what makes CF special, she doesn’t hesitate. “We have a very privileged situation here. We have resources and we have freedom. And together, those two things are invaluable.”

By resources, she means the shared scientific platforms that “expand the possibilities of a single lab” and the internal funds that let researchers “take chances, be exploratory, take risks.” But for Marta, the true heart of CF lies in how knowledge flows. “Everyone talks to everyone, not through the PI or hierarchies, just directly. Especially before COVID, there was a lot of horizontal exchange of knowledge, and I value that a lot.” That openness, she believes, is essential to what CF does best: nurturing creativity through collaboration.

And then there’s the Teaching Lab, something she speaks about with warmth. “It’s changed the way we do science,” she says. “It empowers students and, through them, the labs. It gives us the freedom to try things, to experiment, to not be afraid. That’s invaluable.”

When asked what she aims to accomplish next, Marta’s answer reaches beyond her own work. “Nowadays, the tendency is to search for solutions, products, and impactful things targeted at needs,” she says. “But if you only look for solutions, you risk missing many opportunities to find them. Discovery itself, curiosity, is being undervalued, and that’s dangerous.”

For her, the greatest achievement at CF would be if everyone “valued curiosity-based science.” Having recently completed a medical degree while leading her lab, Marta has gained a renewed respect for dialogue between science and medicine. “We need people talking to each other, scientists and medical doctors. They come from completely different worlds, but that communication is crucial.”

She knows it’s not easy. “Everyone recognises we need medicine, but basic science still needs to be constantly defended. You can’t take it for granted, you have to keep fighting for it. And CF is a place where this is possible. It gave me the freedom to study medicine while being a PI, something that wouldn’t have been possible in many places.” She adds, “It would be amazing to see a postdoctoral programme bridging MDs and PhDs!”

When asked about the stories she finds herself telling most often, she laughs. “The parties at the retreats,” she admits. A small detail, perhaps, but one that speaks volumes about the joy and connection that runs through CF’s history. 
As for the best piece of advice she ever received at CF, Marta pauses - “I don’t think there were words that enlightened me, it was more about the actions. We were all in, that was more inspiring than words.” 

The journey that began in disbelief and youthful defiance has grown into a thriving community defined by curiosity and courage. Marta hopes the next 20 years will bring the same sense of freedom, trust, and risk-taking that shaped its beginning, that CF will keep reinventing itself while staying true to the spirit that made it possible in the first place.

Marta Moita, Principal Investigator, Behavioral Neuroscience Lab

Text by Catarina Ramos, Co-coordinator of the Champalimaud Foundation's Communication, Events & Outreach Team
 

Full 20 Years, 20 Stories Collection here.