Digital Biomarkers and Wearable Kinematics

Measured with enough resolution, movement reveals motor signatures before they are visible to a clinician. We are building a network-level representation of whole-body movement from high-resolution data captured across body-worn sensors and video-based, AI-reconstructed motion, across multiple clinical cohorts, to find measures that are more sensitive and more specific than conventional rating scales.

Mapping of Symptoms

We use DBS, lesion, and coordinate network mapping, alongside stimulation-frequency manipulation and longitudinal kinematic gait assessment, to identify which circuits underlie specific symptoms. We are now expanding this by pairing high-resolution behavioural assessment directly with human brain imaging, with a particular focus on freezing of gait: a single clinical label that likely bundles several dissociable circuit failures, and one where this approach can recover a consistent signature across surgical targets and diseases.

Motor Tomography

Movement disorders are conventionally scored as a single composite severity, but gait, tremor, and bradykinesia are behaviourally and anatomically dissociable. We are building a framework that decomposes Parkinsonian movement into independent kinematic components using task batteries in patients and healthy controls, referencing each component against age- and sex-matched normative ranges, and testing whether these components better track dopaminergic denervation and respond selectively to therapeutic interventions (levodopa, DBS and rehabilitation).

Towards nanoscale live-cell biology through AI-enhanced super-resolution microscopy

Host

Michael Orger, PhD, Vision to Action Lab


Venue

Seminar Room


Abstract

Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy allows biological observation below the diffraction limit of light. Live-cell applications remain limited by phototoxicity, temporal resolution, and sample stability.

03 September 2026

The blueprint for taste: scientists map the complete circuitry behind an animal’s feeding decisions

The taste map, led by scientists at CF, is one of two landmark studies published in Cell by a team of researchers in the US and Europe. It draws on a companion study that maps the wiring of the first complete central nervous system of a complex adult animal: nearly 167,000 neurons spanning the brain and nerve cord of a male fruit fly, with artificial intelligence (AI) making a reconstruction on this scale possible.

In search of good memory: from germinal centers to CNS circuits

Host

Henrique Veiga-Fernandes, PhD, Immunophysiology Lab


Venue

Seminar Room


Abstract

TBD

Public Lecture - Nobel Laureate Thomas C. Südhof

The Champalimaud Foundation is honoured to welcome Nobel Laureate Thomas C. Südhof for a public lecture. Südhof was awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, alongside James Rothman and Randy Schekman, for their discoveries on the key molecular mechanisms behind the release of neurotransmitters at synapses, helping explain how information is passed between nerve cells.

Registration

Attendance is free, but registration is required via this link.

28 July 2026

Champalimaud Foundation and NOVA sign partnership to accelerate health research

Today, 28 July 2026, the Champalimaud Foundation and the NOVA University Lisbon signed a five-year strategic partnership agreement focused on scientific research, advanced training and technological innovation, further strengthening collaboration between the two institutions.

The agreement establishes the foundations for joint research and development projects in the areas of health, life sciences and innovation. The aim is to share knowledge, expertise and specialised resources between the two institutions, accelerating the development of new solutions. 

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