The Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, in Lisbon, is a research institution specialised in the neuroscience of behaviour and the complex interactions within biological systems, and at the same time it is a medical and technological institution providing specialised clinical treatment for oncology and mental health.

To celebrate International Nurses Day, we asked Champalimaud Foundation’s oncology nurses to explore the parallels between their personal and professional lives. From cooking to photography, from Crossfit to ballroom dancing, what similarities with nursing do they find?

One year after the COVID-19 pandemic started in Portugal, the campaign "Conversas com Cientistas - Décadas de Ciência para Dias de Vacinas" kicks off.

For the first time, this Ar Event was available solely online, but that didn’t stop viewers from interacting on all of the available platforms - Zoom, Facebook Live and YouTube - with more than 200 questions shared with our panel of experts.  According to Dr. Bill Richards (who you’ll get to know later!), we are “Moving into new terrain… and we welcome you to join us!”

The starting point for the discussion was the “Inside the Unknown” Science Collection, a project developed by this group in collaboration with Champalimaud Research Labs. The genesis of the project, the creative process behind it, the articulation of all the team’s expertises, main challenges and evaluation metrics, were some of the topics addressed in this conversation.

On the second episode of the Zoom-In series, meet Alexandra Belchior.

Champalimaud Foundation’s work with artificial intelligence is the fourth best in the worldIn the Nature TOP 10, there are institutions from Germany, the United States of America, Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. According to Leonor Beleza, President of the Champalimaud Foundation, “it is a great honour for Portugal and for the Champalimaud Foundation to be at the forefront of scientific research”.

The panel included three in-house specialists: immunologist Thiago Carvalho and oncologists Fátima Cardoso, head of the Breast Unit at the Champalimaud Clinical Centre, and Cristina João, a haematologist in the Haemato-Oncology Unit who also heads the Myeloma and Lymphoma Research Lab at Champalimaud Research.

Studies have suggested for years that dogs are masters at detecting disease thanks to their exceptional sense of smell. Experts agree that their success most probably lies in their ability to sniff out so-called volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, in the air people exhale. In the last few years, more than 1,000 VOCs have been identified in human breath, and scientists are now seeking to determine which ones could be relevant cancer biomarkers.

For the first episode of the Zoom-In series, meet Catarina Pimentel.