From a blank slate to a grown institution

Thinking about the past and how it shaped the present is never simple. But Zach Mainen, who has been here since day one, was a natural person to revisit the “Then and Now” of the Champalimaud Foundation (CF). We spoke about what it meant to take on a new and unpredictable project, and how the dream of a small group gradually became reality. I hope this story inspires you to step into the unknown and to trust that even when the future feels uncertain, it can still unfold into something remarkable.

It was 2005, and Zach was working at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), newly married to neuroscientist Susana Lima, who was also working at CSHL. Moving to Portugal together wasn't even an option until news about a new research centre in Portugal came out. "There was speculation it would be something to do with medical research, but no one knew the field. It was more a 'wouldn't it be interesting if…?’", he recalls. When António Coutinho contacted him later that year to help shape CF's future, Zach didn't hesitate. That early vision from a small group of people eventually defined CF's focus on neuroscience and behaviour.

Zach was the first scientist joining CF, and when he did he was also asked to direct the graduate programme, launching what became the International Neuroscience Doctoral Programme (INDP). CF was still housed in Oeiras at Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC), and so the INDP began there, before CF transitioned to its new building in Lisbon. “IGC was a lovely place, very old, but you’d walk out of my corridor and be in a park”, Zach recalls. It was there that CF’s strong sense of community and lively scientific debate started.

The first INDP class launched in 2007. “Lecturers would come for week-long modules; sometimes I wasn’t even there and they handled everything”, Zach laughs. There was a genuine sense of excitement and people were eager to be part of a new vision and a new way of doing science in Portugal. “I remember a hippocampus workshop with maybe 20 people. We invited the organisers and they brought more people to help, it was fantastic for the students and for the lecturers who said they had a great time too”. 

What began as a practical solution has become a defining feature: “At the time, you couldn’t have an invited lecturer here for an entire semester, so we created week-long modules and it became a tradition”. Today, most teaching is done by CF’s own principal investigators, a reflection of how much the research community has grown since the early IGC days.

By 2008, the IGC lab spaces were ready and Zach was working there full-time. Those early years were filled with planning: defining what CF should offer researchers, building the right infrastructure and even considering practical issues like childcare and transportation. At the same time, CF was recruiting heavily. “Inviting people to give talks and visit was important for visibility; we were hiring in waves each year”, Zach recalls. It was essential to put CF on the map.  

The move to the new building came in 2010-2011, which was functional but still unfinished in places. The Teaching Lab was already up and running, offering INDP students a space to build, test, and experiment. Zach smiles remembering that period, especially the seagulls. “My office overlooked them nesting. They’d clearly been there for years. I even wrote an annual report introducing them as our neighbours, praising their opportunistic adaptability and how they took advantage of this huge building”.

We then talked about how much has changed since those days. Zach describes that at the beginning, neuroscience was the largest area and there was a very strong community spirit, influencing the whole CF. “Now we are one part among many programmes, with over a thousand people overall. Still important, but part of something larger”. And yet “it doesn’t feel entirely different”. The spirit remains, just spread across more fields. “People sometimes mythologise a golden age, and it was fun to start things by ourselves”, Zach says, but this evolution was natural. “We thought of a behaviour-focused neuroscience programme across organisms, it solidified quickly and gave us a distinct identity”. 

Expansion, though, was always expected. “A clinical neuroscience side was always envisioned but unclear for years”. Those long-running plans eventually led to new collaborations and even a dedicated building. “Digital therapeutics were not in our early lens, but it makes sense now”. 

For Zach, this expansion has brought new personal directions too. From partnering with Albino J. Oliveira-Maia, psychiatrist and researcher at CF, to work on psychedelics; to adapting VR glasses for cancer patients waiting for treatment. “It’s good to see integration growing with more connections to the clinic and the cancer groups”.

And this connection to the clinic was deliberate, Zach recalls, “Leonor Beleza used to say: put researchers near clinicians and patients; proximity will make things happen”. Zach emphasises how rare this model is: a small institution combining strong research with an active clinic. “It’s not formulaic”, he says, “but it creates fertile ground for collaboration”. With growth, however, comes challenges. “I liked the initial blank slate, when you could do anything. Now there’s less free space, physically and conceptually”. Still, he continues to adapt, shifting his lab from rodents to humans. “It’s almost like starting a new lab. After a few years, some things work and some don’t, and now it’s about building excellence around those that do”.

We ended by talking about a family friend of his who is leaving Portugal to pursue a scientific career abroad. For Zach, it’s frustrating that, after 20 years, it remains difficult to build a stable scientific path here. But he believes CF has helped reshape the landscape. “The bigger national issue remains: limited scientific jobs. In 20 years we’ve helped show that science can be done at a high level here and can impact the country, people, and patients. But if in the next 20 years we could help shift that further, so people like my friend could return and build a scientific career here, that would be even more meaningful”. And I could not agree more.
 

Zachary Mainen, Principal Investigator, Systems Neuroscience Lab, Champalimaud Foundation

Text by Ana Rita P. Mendes, Communication & Events Manager of the Champalimaud Foundation's Communication, Event & Outreach Team

Full 20 Years, 20 Stories Collection here.