In Portugal, the winning scientists are Isabel Gordo (Gulbenkian Institute of Science, IGC), Maria Manuel Mota (João Lobo Antunes Institute of Molecular Medicine, iMM), Mariana Pinho (ITQB-NOVA) and Henrique Veiga-Fernandes (Champalimaud Foundation). Each will receive between €2.5M and €3.5M for the development of research projects over the next five years.

Modern scientific endeavours are often guided by the positivistic ideal of obtaining a neutral, detached point of observation from which truths about the world can be deduced and believed to hold independently of the socio-political context in which they were obtained.

Scientists and doctors at the Champalimaud Foundation, in Lisbon, have joined efforts to reduce the toxicity of so-called “neoadjuvant chemoradiation” – the combination of chemotherapy plus radiotherapy – for the treatment of rectal cancer. If further confirmed, their results, published a few months ago in the journal Frontiers in Oncology, could in the not-so-distant future help many patients with rectal cancer, especially the more elderly and frail ones.