João Santinha graduated in Biomedical Engineering from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa during one of the longest economic crises Portugal has ever experienced and it was during this time that he heard about the Champalimaud Foundation (CF) for the first time. In a period when there were few opportunities in his field of study, a position opened up on the Scientific Software team that interested him. “I wasn’t selected,” he says smiling, but he adds proudly, “I was invited to another position a few years later.”

Before there was a building by the river, before there were retreats and bustling labs, there was only an idea and a handful of conversations sparked across Lisbon, Boston, and New York.

When Tiago Santos first walked through the glass corridors of the Champalimaud Foundation (CF) in 2014, he already had two years of nursing experience, but none in urology or oncology. “Deep down, one could say I started a new chapter of my career here,” he admits with a wry smile. Indeed, stepping into a nearly empty unit with no reference guides, protocols, or precedents might have made most people run for the hills. But not Tiago. For him, the emptiness was an invitation: a white canvas on which to paint the future of urology nursing at CF.

Offer Description

We are seeking a highly motivated and skilled Bioinformatician to join our dynamic research team. 

The successful candidate will play a critical role in developing and implementing robust bioinformatics pipelines in cloud environments, analysing complex genomic datasets, and contributing to the advancement of our research programs. 

This position is ideal for an individual with a strong background in bioinformatics and hands-on experience with cloud computing and complex biological data.

When I interviewed Albino J. Oliveira-Maia, we spoke about the challenges and lessons that shaped his career. What struck me most was his ability to pursue different things at once and to create the space to keep doing so. By writing this, I hope to share that feeling of courage with others who are now wondering which path to follow.

When Marta Moita first heard whispers of a neuroscience programme taking shape in Lisbon, disbelief was her first reaction. “It just didn’t seem possible,” she recalls. She was a young Principal Investigator (PI) who had returned to Portugal after years abroad, because behavioural neuroscience (her passion) simply didn’t exist here. “So the prospect of not just having a lab, but a whole programme doing circuits and behavioral neuroscience in Lisbon, with people I knew and admired… it was just difficult to assimilate. Was this really happening?”

When Diego Carrasco first saw Lisbon from the air fifteen years ago, the city looked like a watercolour: terracotta rooftops glowing above the Tagus River. “I remember seeing the roofs from the plane,” he says. “It was so romantic. I thought this city is so old, and at the same time, so new.”
It was 2010, and Carrasco, a young Colombian doctor, had been selected to come to Portugal through a government programme that invited Latin American doctors to work in Europe. “I felt welcome from the very beginning, as it was the government itself that had opened the door.”

When we decided to discuss the “welcoming internationals” theme, Mert Erginkaya was among the first names that came to mind. Mert has been a close friend for over six years, and I’ve always felt he represents the Champalimaud Foundation (CF) community at its best. This piece is his story and, in a way, a bit of mine, because I was lucky enough to be part of Mert’s CF journey.