Around 15% of people will, at some point in their lives, experience Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), for which there are several treatment paths. However, it is conservatively estimated that 20% of patients experiencing MDD will not respond well to treatment. To put this in real terms, at least 1-in-66 people will experience a depressive episode that is not responsive to at least two different available forms of treatment, and thus classified as having Treatment Resistant Depression (TRD).

Henrique Veiga-Fernandes, Immunologist, Principal Investigator and one of the Directors of Champalimaud Research; and Ana Paula Pêgo, group leader at i3S - Institute for Research and Innovation in Health, now join an elite group of world-renowned scientists on the Science Review Editors Council.

On the Honourable Mentions, the jury president, anatomopathology doctor and researcher Manuel Sobrinho Simões, referenced that “the jury distinguished (…) two works that show medical research's relevance and urgency; on the one hand cancer and new therapies that mark the research that is being done in this field and, on the other, the pandemic that dominated the year 2020.”

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.

Radical surgical removal of the prostate is the most frequent treatment for prostate cancer when the tumour is localised (meaning it has not spread outside the prostate). 

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!

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.

A study led by scientists from the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, in Lisbon, concludes that bariatric surgery – that is, procedures used to treat severe obesity by reconfiguring the gastrointestinal tract –, leads to greater weight loss in patients who, before the surgery, had a heightened perception of sweetness.