Nearly all types of cancers have the potential to form metastatic growths. However, the exact moment when metastasis emerges is highly variable. While some patients develop metastatic disease soon after the primary tumour appears, others can see decades pass before it happens. What is the source of this variability? 

The CF is one of the Portuguese institutions whose projects were chosen as recipients of this first edition, for their capacitation efforts at the level of clinical research.

A diagnosis of breast cancer is not only an immediate life-threatening situation. It is also a psychological shock, whose repercussions can extend well past a patient’s recovery and jeopardise the leading of a normal life in the long run. However, not everyone reacts the same way to such a radical change of circumstances, which can imply invasive clinical interventions, radiotherapy and harsh chemotherapy regimens – and later strict surveillance to watch for recurrence.

The sound of an accelerating heartbeat can instantly send chills down your spine. You know that sound means trouble. We are so accustomed to the way our hearts seem to continuously mirror how we feel that we can easily imagine different hearts racing, aching or skipping a beat. 

But do the hearts of other animals actually follow the same rules when in danger? When it comes to our fellow vertebrates – frogs, cats, antelope – the answer has been long-known to be “yes”. But what about insects? 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it had quickly become apparent that disease severity is tightly correlated with age. Age, however, is not the only factor. There are multiple cases of older people who were spared and younger individuals who died. A team of international scientists, including Eduardo Moreno, of the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Portugal, decided to investigate the reason for that.

An interdisciplinary consortium of experts from Italy, Finland, Israel, Greece, and Portugal was formed in 2017 in response to a HORIZON 2020 call for Personalised Medicine research and innovation solutions. The product of this collaboration was BOUNCE, a funded project developed to explore factors that influence breast cancer patients’ long-term psychological resilience and their capacity to resume a normal everyday life and work, following breast cancer treatments. 

The ceremony marking the conclusion of the Botton-Champalimaud Pancreatic Cancer Centre was attended by the King and Queen of Spain, Felipe VI and Letizia, and the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.