🏆 Ivone Martins, a researcher at the ICVS – Life and Health Sciences Research Institute, has been awarded the Best Flash Talk prize in the field of Phage Therapy at the Viruses of Microbes 2026 international conference in Prague, which brought together more than 900 experts from around the world.

🧠 What the Brain Wants: Circuits, Signals, and Decisions Our next Advanced Seminar takes place tomorrow and will feature our researcher Ana João Rodrigues, who will explore neuronal circuits and signaling in a thought-provoking seminar. 📅 July 23, 2026, at 1:00 PM, in Room A0.03!

We visited Centro Escola da Naia in Braga for an activity with preschool and primary school students. With the aim of promoting health science, we challenged children to become scientists for a day. Through hands-on experiments, they learned in a fun and engaging way about the importance of science

🧠 Neuroscience and Mental Health: Past, Present, and Future Join us, tomorrow, for the next Advanced Seminars, featuring Joshua Gordon, former Director of the NIMH and Chair of Psychiatry at Columbia University, as he explores the evolution of neuroscience and the future of mental health.

Ready for an exciting @fens.org Forum in #Barcelona! Visit our posters to check the latest findings in our different projects on #astrocyte involvement in #cortico-#limbic #circuit function! #ptglia @icvs-uminho.bsky.social @uminho.bsky.social

Last week, the ICVS retreat brought our community together in Barcelos for two inspiring days of scientific sharing and discussion, and strategic reflection on our present and future. Thank you to everyone who contributed to another successful edition.

The ICVS Seminars for July are just around the corner and will kick off on July 9 📅 Throughout the month, the ICVS Advanced Seminars will bring together ICVS researchers and invited speakers to share insights into their latest research and ongoing work. We look forward to seeing you there!

Day 2 of the ICVS Retreat 2026 featured an inspiring session by Maria Isabel Loza, Professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela, a poster session showcasing the institute's research teams 🧬, and valuable moments of discussion and knowledge sharing about the future of ICVS 🤝

🚀 The first day of the ICVS 2026 Retreat has officially begun! 🧬 A two-day event dedicated to scientific discussions 🔬, as well as reflection and collaboration 🤝 among all members of the institute 🌟

Inês Moreira Ribeiro, a PhD student at the School of Medicine, UMinho, under the supervision of Luísa Pinto and Sébastien Mériaux, has been awarded a PhD in Biomedicine and Health Sciences. Thesis title: "Impact of hippocampal Adult-Born Neurons for Brain Circuitry and Behavior in Depression"

We passed the phone to the person most likely to… Between accusations, revelations and lots of laughter, we got to know the PEvoGen team a little more. 😅 #PEvoGen #ICVS #UMinho #PassThePhone #MostLikelyTo #TeamScience #LabLife #Bioinformatics

📢Science communication is also part of what we do! 🔬At PEvoGen, we believe that research does not end in the laboratory, at the computer or with published results. Sharing knowledge, bringing science closer to society and building bridges with different audiences are essential parts of our work.

🏆 We look back at recent moments of participation in events, awards, science communication and achievements by members of our team. These moments show that science goes beyond results: it involves creativity, collaboration, knowledge sharing and recognition of the work developed by researchers.

💻Dry lab explains wet lab concepts. This time, we challenged the dry lab team with a quick quiz on wet lab concepts. 🧬Dry lab refers to the computational side of research, including bioinformatics, genomics, programming, statistical analysis and interpretation of large datasets.

🧪 Wet lab explains dry lab concepts. For today’s PEvoGen Takeover, we challenged the wet lab team with a quick quiz on dry lab concept 🔬Wet lab refers to experimental work carried out in the laboratory, such as sample preparation, assays, cultures, extraction of biological material and generation

👥 Behind every sample, every sequence and every result are the people who make up PEvoGen. 🧬 We are a team with different areas of expertise, connecting experimental laboratory work with genomics, bioinformatics and data analysis. 🔬 From the bench to the data, this is the PEvoGen team.

🧬 PEvoGen: To open our Takeover on ICVS social media, our team coordinator, Dr. Isabel Veiga, answers a few quick questions about PEvoGen 🔬 Throughout this week, we will share our projects, people, behind-the-scenes moments, science communication activities and the collaborative spirit of our team.

🎙️🧬 ICVS researcher Ricardo Silvestre was featured on Antena 1’s 90 Seconds of Science programme, where he spoke about his project focused on developing a vaccine against Leishmaniasis💉🔬 👉 Listen to the interview here: www.rtp.pt/play/p2936/e...

🌍 An international study published in Nature Medicine, with the participation of Patrícia Maciel, researcher of ICVS/EMUM, concluded that biological foundations of autism are shared across people from different ancestral and geographical backgrounds. Full study at: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The ICVS took part in a science outreach activity at the School of Agriculture of the Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo 🏫 The activity involved third-year undergraduate students from the Biotechnology degree programme and was led by researchers Luana Ferraz and Sara Lopes.

🎙️🧬 ICVS researcher Tiago Gil Oliveira participated in the "90 Seconds of Science" program on Antena 1 radio, where he discussed his project identifying new treatment pathways for Alzheimer's Disease. 🧠🔬 👉 Listen to the interview here: www.90segundosdeciencia.pt/episodes/ep-...

The ICVS seminars for June are coming and start on June 11 📅 Throughout the month, the ICVS Advanced Seminars will bring together ICVS researchers and guest speakers to share knowledge about the work they are developing. We look forward to seeing you!

🎉🔬 On June 1st, we celebrated Children's Day in a very special way at ICVS! We were delighted to welcome 5th-grade students from Teresiano School, got a closer insight into scientific research and take part in hands-on activities designed to spark their curiosity and interest in science.

🏆 Congratulations, Neide Vieira! Neide Vieira has been awarded the 3rd Place of the European Prize for Women Innovators, an initiative of the European Innovation Council (EIC) and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).

🎙️🧬 ICVS researcher Carina Cunha was featured on Antena 1’s program 90 Seconds of Science, where she discussed her current project focused on the brain mechanisms underlying reward and aversion 🦠🔬 👉 Listen to the interview here: www.rtp.pt/play/p2936/e...

🦠 World Leishmaniasis Day Today, we mark World Leishmaniasis Day, raising awareness about a neglected disease affects thousands of people worldwide.

João Filipe Oliveira led an international collaboration to advance the understanding of astrocyte physiology, one of the most complex and essential cell types in the brain. The work was published today at @natneuro.nature.com. Read the full study here: rdcu.be/fk0B7

Sara Duarte-Silva was awarded an Early Career Investigator Award by the National Ataxia Foundation (NAF), in recognition of her innovative work on Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 3 (SCA3), a currently incurable neurodegenerative disease.

🧠 New preprint from our lab! #Hippocampal #astrocytes actively contribute to: 👉 the encoding of #context-specific #aversive stimuli 👉 predict #recall of #fear #behavior. @icvs-uminho.bsky.social @caixaresearch.bsky.social #PTglia

bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Hippocampal astrocytes contribute to encoding context-specific aversive stimuli to regulate fear-related behavior https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.22.727208v1

Céline Gonçalves and Joana Silva were awarded the FCT – RESTART Grants 🎉🏅 The awarded projects are titled: EVolve: WNT6-driven extracellular vesicles as modulators and monitors of glioblastoma and TIA1-Mediated Control of Synaptic Function and Plasticity in Health and Stress. Congratulations 🎉