In many species, including humans and mice, the fluctuating levels of the hormones progesterone and estrogen determine whether the female is fertile or not. And in the case of mice, whether she’s sexually receptive or not. 

The change in receptivity is striking. Female mice shift from accepting sexual partners to aggressively rejecting them across a cycle of six short days. How can the female reproductive hormones bring about such a radical behavioural change?

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

The original idea came from a gastroenterologist at the Champalimaud Foundation, in Lisbon. But transforming it into the object that now embodies it took several years of work by a team of scientists, doctors and engineers in Portugal and Belgium. The first results of a pilot study of this non-surgical device, called MAGUS (for Magnetic Gastrointestinal Universal Septotome), which performs a “cut and paste” procedure in the human body, were announced in 2020.

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!”

This Gulbenkian Knowledge Academy is looking for young people ready to embark on an intergalactic journey into the future of neuroscience!

In this edition, candidates will be able to choose one of two possible trips - Long Flight (lasting about 4 weeks) or Short Flight (lasting around 2 weeks). For the first, 16 Neurocadets will be recruited and for the second, 8 Chimeras!

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.

Cancer researcher Rita Fior uses zebrafish to study human cancer. Though this may seem like an unlikely match, her work shows great promise with forthcoming applications in personalised medicine. 

The basic principle of Fior's approach relies on transplanting human cancer cells into dozens of zebrafish larvae. The fish then serve as "living test tubes" where various treatments, such as different chemotherapy drugs, can be tested to reveal which works best. The assay is rapid, producing an answer within four short days.