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

On the upcoming May 12th at 5:30 PM, the Auditorium of the Champalimaud Foundation will host a landmark event: the public presentation of the Multidisciplinary Recommendations on the Clinical Use of Psychedelic Substances.

Chosen from over 200 applicants across Europe and associated countries, Veiga-Fernandes was one of just 32 scientists ultimately appointed as ERC Ambassadors. The final selection aimed to balance gender, seniority, and the representation of both current ERC grant holders and different countries. The 32 ambassadors represent 21 EU Member States and four Associated Countries – Israel, Norway, Turkey, and the United Kingdom – plus Switzerland.