Today, the European Research Council (ERC) announced the results of its latest Consolidator Grants call, the second level of this type of funding, for researchers with consolidated work in their fields. Two new life science projects in Portugal secured a combined total of €4.1M. These grants were awarded to Juan Álvaro Gallego, who recently joined the CF, and Ricardo Araújo from Instituto Superior Técnico / Centro de Recursos Naturais e Ambiente (CERENA) .

The Champalimaud Foundation installed a new 18-Tesla horizontal-bore MRI scanner, custom-built in Germany at the Pre-Clinical MRI Lab, a team led by Principal Investigator Noam Shemesh. The system is the strongest horizontal-bore MRI scanner constructed to date and is currently the only one of its kind.

“This is the most powerful system in the world for in-vivo imaging,” says Shemesh. “By combining an exceptionally strong magnetic field with signal-boosting cryogenic coils, this equipment enables capabilities that have not been available before.”

Albino Oliveira-Maia, psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and Director of the Neuropsychiatry Unit at the Champalimaud Foundation, has been elected to serve as President-Elect for the 2026–2029 term. He will subsequently assume the full presidency of the SPPSM from 2029 to 20321. Upon accepting the position, Oliveira-Maia emphasized the importance of advancing scientific progress and ensuring its real-world impact, stating: “Through leadership of this Society I hope to continue and expand on the work needed to make science and innovation accessible to those that most need it.”

Personalised Medicine for Colorectal Cancer

In the Clinical Research category, the award went to Rita Fior, leader of the Cancer Development and Innate Immune Evasion Group, for the study “The zAvatar test forecasts clinical treatment response in patients with colorectal cancer: a co-clinical study paving the way for personalised medicine.” Bruna Costa, a postdoctoral researcher, is the first author of the recognised work.

The work fits into a broader effort to understand how the immune system maintains balance – a theme underscored by this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries in immune tolerance.

We explore how imagination can heal – like playing Tetris after trauma to weaken intrusive images in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – and how it can misfire in the hallucinations of Parkinson’s disease or bereavement, when a “phantom spouse” may still be seen or felt, or in Functional Neurological Disorder, where expectations and emotions can produce real physical symptoms, even paralysis. Zeman shares the unforgettable case of “Toby” to show the power of suggestion at work.

Historically, scientists studying the brain, like neuroscientists and psychologists, worked separately from those studying the body, such as endocrinologists and physiologists. Research on how the nervous system interacts with the body has been growing, but “it kind of stops there, rarely making it past the neck to reach the brain again”, as Carlos Ribeiro puts it. Neuroscientists, meanwhile, often focus on higher brain functions without considering how body signals might influence them.

Fermented clues

Cheese and chocolate might not tempt a fruit fly’s palate, but to a hungry fly short on nutrients, their smell carries a hidden signal. When deprived of certain amino acids – the building blocks of protein – these tiny insects develop a surprisingly refined sense of smell that helps them track down not just food, but specific bacteria living in fermented foods.

With nearly 30 presenters, including four keynote speakers, and over 300 participants from across the globe, the symposium was structured into multiple sessions exploring different themes. Chaired by CF’s Memming Park, Principal Investigator of the Neural Dynamics Lab, together with Yale University’s Shreya Saxena and the University of Cambridge’s Guillaume Hennequin, the event focused on neurocybernetics – a field first defined in the 1940s that studies how brains use feedback and control to adapt, learn, and interact with their surroundings.