The Hands-on Molecular Tools workshop aims to cover the fundamental principles and standard techniques used in Molecular Biology and will be taught by experts from CF, FCT-UNL and FCUL/cE3c.

This course will incorporate theoretical and practical classes, where the participants will acquire experience on RNA extraction, cDNA synthesis, PCR, restriction enzyme digestion, electrophoresis, plasmid DNA isolation, as well as, bioinformatics analysis and experimental design of a cloning project. 

The symposium, themed Neuro-Cybernetics at Scale, draws inspiration from the recent advances in AI and machine learning, where scaling has unlocked unprecedented performance. We believe neuroscience may be approaching a similar inflection point. By convening researchers in experimental neuroscience, robotics, machine learning, control theory, and theoretical neuroscience, we aim to explore how ideas of scaling and feedback can shape the future of systems neuroscience.

The first edition of the Botton-Champalimaud International Pancreatic Conference, hosted at the prestigious Botton-Champalimaud Pancreatic Cancer Centre, was a landmark event in 2024, bringing together leading experts, researchers, and healthcare professionals from around the world to discuss the latest advancements in pancreatic cancer diagnosis, treatment, and care.

Host

Naz Belkaya, MSc, Circuit Dynamics and Computation

Venue

Seminar room

It was a happy coincidence: the final text of the Recommendations of the Multidisciplinary and Multiprofessional Working Group on the Clinical Use of Psychedelic Substances was released on the same day that the Portuguese National Health System announced its decision to fully reimburse the treatment of resistant depression with a substance called esketamine.

Host

Ana Luísa Correia, PhD, Cancer Dormancy & Immunity

Venue

Seminar room

An international team, led by researchers at the Champalimaud Foundation (CF), has shown – for the first time in a realistic way – that it may be possible, in the future, to diagnose Parkinson’s disease (PD) years earlier, by scanning people’s brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Although there are treatment options after diagnosis, there is no cure.  Therapies are continually improving — with ongoing research aiming to slow or even alter the course of the disease - investing in the research of methods that enable much earlier diagnosis is crucial.

Analysing these scans can also be time-consuming and complex, as doctors need to pore over countless images, looking for often tiny details.

So, any new imaging analysis technique that is faster and more precise is always welcome: a new paper (recently published in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine) reveals that the Champalimaud Foundation’s Nuclear Medicine-Radiopharmacology Unit has managed just that by using Deep Learning (DL) Artificial Intelligence (AI).

When a fruit fly is navigating straight forward at high speed, why does it know that it’s not straying off course? Because as long as the fly moves directly forward, the visual scene shifts from front to back in a near-perfect mirror image across both retinas – generating, in other words, a symmetrical visual motion pattern. This pattern, known as “optic flow”, provides a powerful cue for detecting self-motion and maintaining direction.

Host

Inês Ramos, PhD, Tissue Immunity

Venue

Seminar room