Rita Fior, leader of the Cancer Development and Innate Immune Evasion Group at the Champalimaud Foundation (CF), has been studying for several years the power of zebrafish “avatars”, or zAvatars, of cancer patients to help guide therapeutic decisions. The goal: to predict individual cancer treatment outcomes, thus enabling the selection of the best available chemotherapy treatment for each patient.

The images created during the daily scientific and medical endeavours at the Champalimaud Foundation can be as beautiful and compelling as any work of art. To the untrained eye, these images might also appear baffling, but, if you know what you’re looking at, they may just reveal information that can spark discoveries, contribute to the improvement of patient quality of life and maybe even alter our understanding of reality.