“I’m exactly as I was 10 years ago”, says Kina García, a Spanish woman from the Granada region, as she addresses by Zoom, from her home, the audience of the International Conference on Neurodegenerative Diseases, gathered on a Saturday morning at the Champalimaud Foundation’s auditorium, in Lisbon. The date is appropriate: it is September 21 – World Alzheimer's Day. 

Joining institutions such as the Max Planck Society, Germany (#1), the Allen Institute, USA (#6), and the Pasteur Institute, France (#13), the CF's ranking places it among the world’s top contributors to neuroscience, and as the only Portuguese institution to make the list. The ranking is based on its contribution to published research, which is measured by both the number of articles (“Count”) and the portion of authorship (“Share”).

On the 3rd of October, a full day pre-meeting summit was held on the KPro, the revolutionising keratoprosthesis developed by Claes Dohlman, laureate of the 2022 António Champalimaud Vision Award, receiving it shortly after his 100th birthday. The summit celebrated Dohlman’s legacy with recent advances partly funded by the award and innovative work from around the globe. 
 

The regatta coincided with Portugal's Implantação da República holiday and the 14th anniversary of the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Boats set sail at 11:00 am, with participants and spectators gathering at the Champalimaud Foundation’s waterfront amphitheatre.

The conference will present preliminary findings of the Bridge AI project, an ambitious initiative coordinated by INESC-ID, in collaboration with the Champalimaud Foundation and Unbabel. Leading academics, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and interested citizens will gather to discuss the implications and implementation of the European Union’s AI Act.

With fully functional inpatient and recovery units, as well as operating rooms, the Centre is now prepared to significantly expand the Champalimaud Foundation's capacity to treat pancreatic cancer patients. With a dedicated team of specialists in the treatment and research of this type of cancer, the Centre's mission is to deliver the highest standard of clinical care.

This congress reaffirmed the collaboration between the two countries in the research and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, a condition with a higher incidence in aging societies like those of Spain and Portugal, and with a profound economic and social impact.

The laureates of the 2024 António Champalimaud Vision Award are researchers Margaret Livingstone, Nancy Kanwisher, Doris Tsao (from the United States) and Winrich Freiwald (Germany) for their innovative contributions to understanding the neural mechanisms underlying facial recognition.  
 
The collective work carried out by these researchers has led to significant advances in the field of visual neuroscience, demonstrating how the brain processes and recognises faces, a fundamental aspect of social interaction and human cognition.
 

Co-organised by Fundación CIEN, Fundación Reina Sofía, and the Champalimaud Foundation, this scientific congress aims to bring advances in research in the fight against Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases to the public, and above all, to raise awareness to advance the search for global solutions and responses due to their social consequences.