The Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto and the RISE-Health inaugurate on Wednesday a laboratory of 2.1 million euros to innovate in personalized diagnoses and therapies in cancer, Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis. The laboratory, equipped with state-of-the-art technology, aims to accelerate clinical and translation research, with more accurate diagnoses and more personalized therapeutics.
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19/10/2026
by
Lusa
A Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto and RISE-Health inaugurate on Wednesday a laboratory of 2.1 million euros to innovate in diagnoses and allow personalized therapies in the areas of cancer, Alzheimer's or multiple sclerosis.
“The objective is to accelerate clinical and translation research developed by researchers from various areas, resulting in a direct impact on the provision of health care, with more accurate diagnoses, new more personalized preventive and therapeutic approaches,” Lusa said the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (FMUP).
The Biomarker Laboratory “is equipped with state-of-the-art, highly competitive technology, aimed at boosting new scientific discoveries and improving people’s health and quality of life,” he adds.
For FMUP, the new laboratory will be “a weight ally” for “research into genetic, oncological, neurological, psychiatric or infectious diseases, among others” in Portugal.
One of the examples “is an innovative equipment that allows, from a single blood sample, to analyze neurological biomarkers associated with diseases such as Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis”.
“ This is a great advance and may be a determinant to start an earlier intervention that can improve the prognosis of the disease,” said Joana Marques, who coordinates the laboratory, along with Rita Barros, both researchers from FMUP and the RISE-Health Research Unit.
Another “avant-garde equipment” and “one of the laboratory’s stars” is a robot that allows “to classify tumors, particularly during surgery, by sequencing epigenetic DNA modifications, in real time”.
The result “can avoid more invasive interventions”, supports the SPF.
“The new robot, coupled with high-performance sequencers, is focused on the area of Oncology, allowing to detect genetic variants in tumor cells that are circulating through the blood, without the need for a biopsy or surgery to take tissue samples,” he explains.
In the laboratory it is also possible “to quickly identify resistance to antibiotics and develop organoids (species of in vitro mini-organs)”.
To this is added the possibility of “innovating with the application of artificial intelligence to health”.
The funding of €2.1 million from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) also involves RISE-Health, “the country’s largest health research unit”, based at FMUP.
The inauguration is scheduled for Tuesday at 11:00 at FMUP Medical Research Center.