Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurological disorder known for its characteristic motor symptoms: tremor, rigidity, and slowness of movement. Among these, rest tremor—a shaking that occurs when muscles are relaxed—is one of the most recognisable yet least understood.

For this edition of the contest, a total of nine groundbreaking biomedical and health projects spearheaded by research institutions in Portugal were selected. Alongside CF, GIMM, and i3S, awards were also granted to projects from the Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (ITQB NOVA), Instituto de Investigação em Ciências da Vida e da Saúde (ICVS) and Instituto de Biomedicina (iBiMED). These nine selected projects will receive more than €7.6 million in support.

In order for our bodies to efficiently transform into fat the excess carbohydrates we eat, in a process of  “lipogenesis”, two things  must happen. First, the immune system's gamma-delta T cells, a type of lymphocytes that are present in large quantities in adipose tissue (a.k.a. fat), have to produce a substance that triggers lipogenesis, called IL-17.

With nearly 30 presenters—including 4 keynote speakers—ranging from internationally renowned scientists to emerging researchers, the symposium was structured into eight thematic sessions, each exploring different dimensions, from the interplay between tumour cells and their microenvironment to the systemic impacts of cancer on the body.

The short video’s title is “My word” and it was generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) software that creates images from written text. Directed by Carmen Puche Morè, it warns viewers, right at the start, that the software “mirrors the biases and (mis)conceptions present in the data used to train it”.

The fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is a widely used model in neuroscience due to its relatively small brain, which is easier to study than those of larger animals. Despite its size, the Drosophila brain is capable of forming memories, learning, and engaging in sophisticated social behaviours. Remarkably, fruit flies perform calculations as complex as vertebrates, but with a brain that has far fewer neurons. They share about 60% of their genes with humans, and 75% of human genetic diseases have parallels in flies.

The ERC Starting Grant is one of Europe’s most prestigious and competitive research awards, designed to support promising early-career researchers who have the potential to become leaders in their fields. Ianuş will receive €2M over the next five years to develop her research project at King’s College London, where she recently joined as a Lecturer in Healthcare Engineering.

How do we learn to make sense of our environment? Over time, our brain builds a hierarchy of knowledge, with higher-order concepts linked to the lower-order features that comprise them. For instance, we learn that cabinets contain drawers and that Dalmatian dogs have black-and-white patches, and not vice versa. This interconnected framework shapes our expectations and perception of the world, allowing us to identify what we see based on context and experience.

Using zebrafish “Avatars”, an animal model developed by the Cancer Development and Innate Immune Evasion lab at the Champalimaud Foundation (CF), led by Rita Fior, Mayra Martínez-López – a former PhD student at the lab now working at the Universidad de las Américas in Quito, Ecuador – and colleagues studied the initial steps of the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine’s action on bladder cancer cells.

Now, Megan Carey from the Champalimaud Foundation (CF), Mónica Sousa from the Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde (i3S), Ricardo Henriques from the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC), and Rui Oliveira from IGC and the Instituto Universitário de Ciências Psicológicas Sociais e da Vida (ISPA), become EMBO Mem