Alexandre Silva

Alexandre Silva is one of the most acclaimed chefs in contemporary Portuguese gastronomy. Awarded a Michelin star for the restaurant LOCO and founder of FOGO, he was born in Abrigada, Alenquer. Alexandre discovered his passion for cooking at the age of 18 and trained in Culinary Arts, Pastry, and F&B Management at the Lisbon School of Hospitality and Tourism, later complementing his education with studies in Molecular Gastronomy. He gained national recognition after winning the RTP television competition Top Chef in 2012, an experience that led him to El Celler de Can Roca, widely regarded as one of the best restaurants in the world. His cuisine combines creativity, research, and a deep connection to ingredients and territory, establishing him as one of the most innovative voices in Portuguese fine dining.

Ana Peneda Moreira

SIC

Ana Peneda Moreira is a reporter and news anchor for SIC and SIC Notícias. She began her journalism career in radio before moving to television, where she has worked for the past 20 years. The author of the “Isto é Saúde” health segment, she enjoys taking on new challenges, whether in the studio or in the field. She recently covered the war in Ukraine, where she was working as SIC’s special correspondent on 24 February 2022, when the invasion began. In 2019, she was also SIC’s special correspondent in Beira, Mozambique, covering Cyclone Idai. A journalist specialising in Health and Justice, she was the author of the podcast Justiça sem Códigos, driven by the belief in purposeful communication.

Ana Santos Almeida

GIMM CARE, Lisbon School of Medicine

Ana Santos Almeida is Principal Investigator at GIMM CARE and an Invited Assistant Professor at the Lisbon School of Medicine. She is a microbiologist and immunologist whose work explores how the gut and tumour microbiomes shape human health, inflammation, and cancer. She earned her PhD from Sorbonne University in 2012 and completed postdoctoral training at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and APC Microbiome Ireland. At GIMM CARE she leads translational research combining microbiome science, immunology, and artificial intelligence to develop precision diagnostics and therapies, particularly in colorectal cancer and women’s health.

Carlos Moedas

Mayor of Lisbon

Carlos Moedas is Mayor of Lisbon and a member of the Portuguese Council of State. Trained as an engineer, he holds a degree in Civil Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico and an MBA from Harvard University. He began his career in the private sector before entering politics in 2011, when he was elected to the Portuguese Parliament for the Beja constituency and appointed Secretary of State to the Prime Minister.

From 2014 to 2019, he served as European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, where he oversaw Horizon 2020, the European research and innovation programme with a budget of €80 billion, and was the architect of its successor, Horizon Europe.

He has received several distinctions, including honorary doctorates from European universities, the Grand Cross of the Order of Prince Henry, awarded by the President of Portugal, and France’s Légion d’honneur.

Cristóvão Sousa

GIMM CARE

Cristóvão Sousa is the Head of R&D at GIMM CARE, where he leads efforts to advance translational research and therapeutic innovation. His work brings together scientific discovery, drug development, and strategic collaborations to help move promising research toward clinical application.

Cristóvão holds a PhD in Cancer Biology and trained at Institut Curie and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School before pursuing a career spanning both academia and the biopharmaceutical industry, including positions at Servier and Agios Pharmaceuticals. His interests include translational oncology, therapeutic discovery, and creating the conditions that enable scientific breakthroughs to generate real-world benefit.

Inês Domingues

GIMM

Inês Domingues, PhD, is Chief of Staff to the CEO at the Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine (GIMM), where she supports executive leadership in advancing strategic priorities, strengthening institutional alignment, and translating vision into action across the organization. Her work sits at the  intersection of leadership, science, and institutional strategy, with a particular focus on coordination, communication, and stakeholder engagement. She holds a degree in Biology and a PhD in Cell Biology from the University of Lisbon. With more than a decade of experience in science communication,  public engagement, and institutional positioning, she has built a career dedicated to connecting cutting-edge research with society and ensuring that  complex scientific knowledge is communicated in a clear, accessible, and meaningful way. Before taking on her current role, she served as Head of Communication at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes (iMM), where she led the institute’s institutional communication and public engagement programme. She previously worked at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, developing communication and outreach initiatives that  strengthened institutional visibility and broadened public engagement with science.

Isabel Gordo

GIMM

Isabel Gordo is a Group Leader at GIMM, where she studies bacterial evolution in the context of the gut microbiome. Trained in Physics, she earned a PhD in Evolutionary Genetics from the University of Edinburgh in 2002 and conducted postdoctoral research at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, becoming a principal investigator in 2004. Her work examines how bacteria adapt to stressful environments such as antibiotics and immune pressures, and she currently holds an ERC Advanced Grant to study intrahost evolution in health and disease. Gordo’s lab combines theoretical and experimental approaches using E. coli and mouse models to understand the forces shaping microbial diversity and resistance. She founded the Portuguese Society for Evolutionary Biology and is an elected member of EMBO and the European Academy of Microbiology.

Margarida Santos

SIC

Margarida da Graça Santos is a specialist in General and Family Medicine at ULS Lisboa Ocidental. She graduated from NOVA Medical School and completed part of her medical training at Sorbonne University in Paris through the Erasmus programme. She has undertaken postgraduate training in Clinical Nutrition, Travel Medicine and Breastfeeding. Alongside her clinical practice, Margarida is dedicated to health communication and literacy, with particular interests in obesity, mental health and risk behaviours. She develops health literacy projects and communicates health topics through digital and media platforms. She hosts the Consulta Aberta podcast on SIC Notícias and is co-author of Na Saúde e Na Doença. She is also the presenter and author of the WHO Europe podcast Health Reality Check.

Maria Mota

GIMM, Lisbon School of Medicine

Maria M. Mota is a biologist and leading malaria researcher, currently GIMM’s CEO. She earned her degree in Biology and a Master’s in Immunology from the University of Porto and completed a PhD in Molecular Parasitology at University College London. After postdoctoral work with Vitor Nussenzweig at NYU, she returned to Portugal to lead malaria research at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science and later became a principal investigator and Executive Director of iMM. Her work investigates both liver and blood stages of Plasmodium infection. An EMBO member and former HHMI international researcher, she has received major honors including the Pessoa Prize and national decorations for scientific merit. She is also an advocate for gender equality and public engagement in science.

Patrícia Costa Reis

GIMM, Lisbon School of Medicine, Unidade Local de Saúde Santa Maria

Patrícia Costa Reis is a physician-scientist at Hospital de Santa Maria and GIMM, where she combines clinical care with fundamental research to improve the diagnosis and treatment of children with complex immune-mediated diseases. She is a pediatrician, pediatric rheumatologist and pediatric nephrologist, as well as Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon. She is Co-Director of the GIMM Biobank and of the Portuguese node of BBMRI. She trained at Columbia University, Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she completed her PhD research on lupus nephritis. Her work has been supported by FCT, Horizon Europe and the D. Manuel de Mello Foundation, among others, and she received the L’Oréal Medals of Honor for Women in Science. She is also actively involved in mentoring and science and health education.

Paula Peixe

Associação Portuguesa para o Estudo do Fígado (APEF)

Paula Peixe is President of the Portuguese Association for the Study of the Liver and a specialist in Gastroenterology, with a subspecialty in Hepatology, at Unidade Local de Saúde Lisboa Ocidental (ULSLO) – Hospital Egas Moniz Hospital. She graduated from Faculdade de Ciências Médicas de Lisboa and is also involved in academia as an Assistant Lecturer in Medicine at NOVA Medical School and as an Invited Assistant Professor on the Master’s Degree in Clinical Nutrition at the Egas Moniz School of Health. Throughout her professional career, she has served on various bodies and committees in the fields of healthcare ethics and quality, including the ULSLO Ethics Committee, which she chairs. She is the author of publications in national and international scientific journals and a reviewer for several specialised publications.

Ricardo Fernandes

GAT – Grupo de Ativistas em Tratamentos

Ricardo Fernandes is an activist and currently serves as Deputy Executive Director of GAT, an organization that supports communities affected by HIV, viral hepatitis, tuberculosis, and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) through peer-led sexual health and harm reduction services, as well as national and international advocacy. He has worked in this field since 2000, with extensive experience in project coordination, organizational management, and leadership. Ricardo is a member and former President of the European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG) and co-author of studies on stigma, late diagnosis, and health literacy.

Sara Sá

GIMM

Sara Sá is the Science Communications Lead at GIMM. A science journalist for more than two decades before moving into institutional communications, she has worked across print, digital, and television, covering science, health, technology, and the environment. At GIMM, she develops communication strategies, produces content across multiple platforms, and leads public engagement initiatives that connect biomedical research with society. Committed to making complex science accessible, she is always looking for the best way to make research meaningful, relevant, and engaging for diverse audiences. She holds a degree in Space Engineering and is the author of a popular science book exploring common scientific myths.

Charles Rice

Rockefeller University

Charles Rice is an American virologist and Professor at Rockefeller University in New York, best known for his groundbreaking work on the hepatitis C virus. He shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries that enabled reliable blood screening and the development of curative antiviral therapies, fundamentally transforming the understanding and treatment of viral hepatitis. Born in 1952 in Sacramento, California, Rice earned a B.S. in zoology from the University of California, Davis, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Caltech, where he began his lifelong focus on RNA viruses. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Rice has received many of the field’s highest honors, including the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, the Robert Koch Prize, and the InBev-Baillet Latour Health Prize. A member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Fellow of the AAAS, he has authored more than 400 scientific publications and is widely recognized as one of the leading figures in modern virology.

Filipe Gaspar

Hovione

Filipe Gaspar is Vice President of Technology Intensification at Hovione, where he is responsible for sustaining and advancing the company’s technological leadership in Spray Drying and Continuous Tableting. He also oversees Hovione’s innovation processes and portfolio.

Previously, Filipe served as Chief Technology Officer, leading the company’s R&D and Digital functions. He is passionate about innovation and the application of science, technology, and digitalization to advance pharmaceutical development and manufacturing.

Filipe holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Birmingham, UK.