Monday, 9 a.m.. A small group of basic science researchers from the Champalimaud Foundation and other people working at the Foundation who are interested in bridging the gap between science and medicine is scheduled for a “medical class” via Zoom (due to pandemic restrictions) with Pedro Marvão, their tutor in a new course called Fundamentals of Medicine. In one week, they will have to “solve”, together, a clinical case. They will do this, week after week, with a series of other cases. 

For the seventh episode of the Zoom-In series, meet Laura Fernandez, a surgeon at the Digestive Unit. Curious about Laura’s work? Check out our website here and you can also find out more about Laura's latest work on the Watch&Wait protocol - a non-invasive approach to rectal cancer treatment.

Right now, lung cancer is the most lethal cancer in the world. Eighty percent of its victims are smokers, making smoking a determinant risk factor for this cancer. But according to oncologist Nuno Gil, who heads the Lung Unit at the Champalimaud Clinical Centre, smoking is not the ultimate cause of lung cancer. First, many smokers never develop lung cancer, and second, a growing number of non-smokers have this disease. Nuno Gil would really like to solve this mystery.

In recognition of their endeavour, the FAITH project has been nominated for an ‘.eu Web Award’  in the ‘Better World’ category, The .eu Web Awards are an online competition, launched in 2014 and designed to acknowledge the best websites using the .eu, .ею or .ευ extensions, in six dynamic categories. Finalists with the highest scores from the jury will be selected as winners, and will be announced during the Awards ceremony held on 16 October 2021.

The original idea came from a gastroenterologist at the Champalimaud Foundation, in Lisbon. But transforming it into the object that now embodies it took several years of work by a team of scientists, doctors and engineers in Portugal and Belgium. The first results of a pilot study of this non-surgical device, called MAGUS (for Magnetic Gastrointestinal Universal Septotome), which performs a “cut and paste” procedure in the human body, were announced in 2020.