Meeting Description

This meeting collaboration between the Association for Cancer Immunotherapy CIMT and the Champalimaud Foundation will address promising paths towards effective cellular treatment modalities for patients with solid cancer and discuss the boundaries of synthetically engineered immune cells. The meeting will also discuss the innovation gap between academic and small biotech driven research, and the challenges of safe, biologically, and clinically relevant phase I / II clinical trials. 

A study published in mid-April in the journal Nature Communications by Leopoldo Petreanu and his team, from the Cortical Circuits lab at Champalimaud Research, concludes that sensory processing by the visual cortex’s is not purely visual. More to the point, the study shows that, right from the early stages of sensory processing, the visual cortex integrates information from other sensory modalities, such as sounds.

Reported today in Science, the researchers found that mice given a diet rich in vitamin D had better immune resistance to experimentally transplanted cancers and improved responses to immunotherapy treatment. This effect was also seen when gene editing was used to remove a protein that binds to vitamin D in the blood and keeps it away from tissues.

The word “cerebellum” means “little brain”, despite the fact that it holds more than half the brain’s neurons. It is essential for coordinating movements and balance, helping you perform everyday tasks smoothly, like walking down a crowded street, or playing sports. It is also crucial for the learning process that allows you to associate sensory cues with specific actions.

The Champalimaud Foundation is looking for Anatomical Pathology Technicians to be part of the Pathology Department team.

Duration

The position has an initial duration of 12 months.

Position

The selected candidates will be part of the technical team of the Anatomic Pathology Service and will work in gross examination, histology, cytology, ancillary techniques, and other laboratory tasks.

Imagine the act of walking. It’s something most able-bodied people do without a second thought. Yet it is actually a complex process involving various neurological and physiological systems. PD is a condition where the brain slowly loses specific cells, called dopamine neurons, resulting in reduced strength and speed of movements. However, there’s another important aspect that gets affected: the length of actions. Someone with PD might not only move more slowly but also take fewer steps in a walking sequence or bout before stopping.

Rhiner's project seeks to understand the molecular and cellular circuits that help the brain recover from injuries. Damage to the nervous system disrupts the strongly linked networks of brain cells, leading to drastically altered cellular interactions that are not well understood. The BrainSySTEMic project is set to decode the molecular dialogues disrupted in injured brain tissues and discover new signalling pathways that encourage regeneration and strengthen the brain's ability to bounce back.

Imagine watching a film. The moving images you see are actually a series of static frames shown rapidly. This is the continuity illusion at work, where our brain perceives a sequence of quick flashes as continuous, smooth motion. It’s a phenomenon not just vital to our enjoyment of films but also a fundamental aspect of how all mammals, from humans to rats, perceive the dynamic world around them. This study from the CF’s Shemesh Lab, published in Nature Communications, delves into how this illusion is encoded in the brain.

Here, we highlight the observations, the questions, the approaches and strategies that showcase the creativity and critical thinking inherent in scientific research.

In science, creativity stands as a crucial, albeit sometimes underappreciated, skill. Creativity comes in a wide variety of forms and shapes, and often emerges from collaborative interactions among diverse minds, emphasising the importance of inclusivity and varied perspectives in driving forward groundbreaking research.