For Leonor Beleza, Rui Costa’s arrival represents an invaluable contribution to the development of the Foundation’s scientific and clinical mission in the fields of cancer and neuroscience. She highlights: “The strategic vision and remarkable career of Professor Rui Costa strengthen our ability to generate knowledge and transform it into real benefits for patients and for society. It is also an investment in the future and in the continuity of our ambition and vision.”

The Use of Defensive Responses to Study Patterned Sequences of Behaviour

Marta Moita, Behavioral Neuroscience Lab

Circuit Mechanisms Driving Movement Disorders

Joaquim Alves da Silva, Neural Circuits Dysfunction Lab

Moderation

Rita Fior, Cancer Development and Innate Immune Evasion Lab

Host

Michael Orger, PhD, Vision to Action Lab

Venue

Seminar room

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.

The work fits into a broader effort to understand how the immune system maintains balance – a theme underscored by this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries in immune tolerance.

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?”