Instituto de Biofísica e Engenharia Biomédica

29/01/2026

👏 PhD student João Mendes, and full members of IBEB Prof. Ana M. Mota and Prof. Nuno Matela have published new research on using AI to differentiate breast lesions with very similar radiological appearance. A key highlight of this work is the implementation of Explainable AI (XAI), ensuring transparency and providing clinicians with a clearer understanding of the AI’s decision-making process.

✨ Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive molecular subtype of breast cancer (BC). TNBC lacks targeted treatment options, which results in poor clinical outcomes. TNBC lesions usually present benign characteristics on mammograms, complicating their early diagnosis. This retrospective multicenter study presents a convolutional neural network (CNN) model to distinguish TNBC from benign lesions on 566 mammograms (277 benign/289 TNBC), acquired at three different institutions across the UK. Each mammogram had its quality enhanced using a combination of total variation minimization filtering and contrast local adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE). The proposed model achieved a test set AUC of 0.984, with a sensitivity and specificity of 94.2% and 91.9%, respectively. Explainability with GRAD-CAM was applied to the test set, revealing that the model was using not only lesion characteristics but also tumor microenvironment regions to make predictions. The same test set was analyzed by an expert radiologist who achieved a sensitivity of 71% and a specificity of 60%. The comparison of results between the developed model and the expert radiologist highlights the model’s performance and underscores its potential as a complementary diagnostic tool. This model might help in the task of TNBC early diagnosis, potentially diminishing the number of false negatives.

🔗 Read more at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11547-025-02157-x

06/01/2026

👏 Researcher Daniela Godinho has had her project “Multimodal Deep Learning Approaches for Predicting Treatment Response in Breast Cancer”, in collaboration with Inês Prata Machado from the University of Cambridge, approved under the 6th Advanced Computing Projects Call – A0 (Lot A). This project will grant access to advanced computational infrastructure for six months.

05/01/2026

🌟 We are organising a "Training school on management of technology transfer" with University of Galway. The school will take place at IBEB from 14th of 16th of January 2026. Anyone from FCiências. ID/CIÊNCIAS-ULISBOA, Politecnico di Torino (POLITO) or University of Galway (GALWAY) can attend (FC. ID in-person and POLITO/GALWAY online).
👉 Find more details in the publication below.

🌟 In the context of the "3BAtwin" project, University of Galway (GALWAY) is organising a "Training school on management of technology transfer" for FCiências. ID/Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa administration staff, project managers and researchers from 14th to 16th of January 2026. The school will take place at Instituto de Biofísica e Engenharia Biomédica, locally organised by FCiências. ID/CIÊNCIAS. Anyone from FCiências. ID/CIÊNCIAS, Politecnico di Torino (POLITO) or GALWAY can attend (FC. ID in-person and POLITO/GALWAY online) after filling in following registration form: https://forms.gle/FZw821ytmSc89Fn49

𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 3𝐁𝐀𝐭𝐰𝐢𝐧:
3BAtwin is a European Union Twinning Project coordinated by FCiências .ID/CIÊNCIAS-ULISBOA which aims to capacitate them with the various specific/fine knowledge and tools which will allow to accelerate Medical Microwave Imaging (MMWI) from the research bench to the patient bedside.

The main objective of 3BAtwin is for FC .ID/CIÊNCIAS-ULISBOA to gain excellence capacity in all sub-fields related to MMWI research, and become strong competitors in translating their unique breast and axillary region device to the hospital, which will be possible by further establishing a solid collaboration with project partners: GALWAY in Ireland, POLITO in Italy.

𝑾𝒆𝒃𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒆: https://3batwin.rd.ciencias.ulisboa.pt/

𝐎𝐛𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥:
➡️ Provide training on the best strategies to licence technology and income models, such as royalties.
➡️ Provide training on Intellectual Property (IP) management, including clinical IP.
➡️ Presentation of specific examples of MedTech, benefiting from GALWAY’s strategic ecosystem with many MedTech international companies and USA investors.

This registration form is open until the 9th of January. You will receive the details for attending the school by e-mail on the 12th of January.

24/12/2025

✨️ IBEB wishes you Happy Holidays! ✨️

09/12/2025

👏🏻A new paper titled “Quantitative Evaluation of Repeatability in Medical Microwave Imaging: A Systematic Review” has just been published in the IEEE Access journal by PhD student Henrique Lopes, together with IBEB researchers and professors Daniela Godinho and Raquel Conceição.

✨Repeatability is a critical requirement for bringing medical microwave imaging (MMWI) into clinical practice. Yet, despite its importance, there is still no agreement on how repeatability should be measured or reported across different systems. Following PRISMA guidelines, the authors conducted the first systematic review focused on how repeatability is currently assessed in MMWI. They provide clear and actionable recommendations to help harmonise repeatability assessment in future MMWI research.

This work was supported by the European Union (3BAtwin, GA 101159623).

Read more at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11270978

02/12/2025

✨ On November 26th, PhD student Henrique Lopes took part in the 9th Annual RedeSaúde Conference in Lisbon, dedicated to the theme “People and Planet: How the Environment Shapes Human Health.” He presented his research “Microwave Imaging for Breast Cancer Screening and Axillary Lymph Node Detection” during the poster session and embraced the challenge of summarizing his work in a dynamic 1-minute pitch.

28/11/2025

✨ On 21 November, several researchers from IBEB attended the 19º Congresso do Comité Português da URSI, whose theme this year was “Novas Fronteiras da Inovação Tecnológica para a Saúde”.

🗣️ The keynote speaker was Professor and IBEB researcher Raquel Conceição, who is also Vice-President of URSI’s National Scientific Commission K. In the first panel, dedicated to “New frontiers of technological innovation for health,” the discussion was moderated by Professor Raquel and included several presentations, among them one by Professor Hugo Ferreira on brain-imaging technologies. The second panel, moderated by Professor Nuno Matela, focused on “Healthcare outside the clinical setting.”

👏 In the afternoon, the presentations competing for the various awards took place. PhD students Henrique Lopes and Leonor Pires competed for the Best Student Paper Award, while IBEB researcher and professor Daniela Godinho competed for the ANACOM–URSI Portugal Prize. The day concluded with the awarding of 3rd place in the Best Student Paper Award to Henrique Lopes for his PhD work.

27/11/2025

👏 On November 11th, IMAGI Health, an innovative project based on IBEB, won the "Pitch Competition" in the "Student" category of the UniVerse - Entrepreneurial Academy event.

✨ Developed by PhD students Mariana de Oliveira and Leonor Pires, and alumni Inês Castro de Lima and Raquel Rebordão, IMAGI Health is a groundbreaking solution that combines virtual reality with hypnotherapy to manage pediatric chronic pain. The UniVerse - Entrepreneurial Academy, held at Pavilhão de Portugal as a side event of Web Summit 2025, focused on the impact of academia on the Portuguese entrepreneurship ecosystem.

✨ Also featured in the university project showcase was TranquilBite. Developed by Master's students Inês Correia and Afonso Simões, the project introduces a system for detecting and mitigating bruxism effects, embedded in a sleep eye mask.

🔗 Read more at https://ciencias.ulisboa.pt/pt/noticia/18-11-2025/investigadoras-de-ciencias-ganham-competi%C3%A7ao-do-evento-universe-com-solu%C3%A7ao-para

19/11/2025

👏 The paper “Acute Invasive Dorso-Ventral DCS Applied With a Ball Electrode Does Not Alter Spinal Motoneurons' Firing Characteristics in the SOD-1 G93A Mouse Model of ALS” was recently published in the European Journal of Neuroscinece. This work was co-authored by PhD student Leonor de Oliveira Pires and IBEB researcher and professor Sofia Rita Fernandes.

✨ This work investigates the effects of invasive spinal direct-current stimulation (DCS) in the animal model of ALS (SOD1 mouse) on spinal motoneuron excitability. The computational model developed by the IBEB researchers confirmed the distribution of the electric field produced by the stimulation, which supports the experimental results obtained.

🔗 Read more at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ejn.70314

18/11/2025

👏 The IBEB full member and researcher, Tiago Atalaia, has published a new article "Equivalence Between Land and Water Countermovement Jump for Physical Performance Testing" in the Journal of Aquatic Physical Therapy.

✨ In this paper, the team proposes the adaptation of a global physical fitness test — the countermovement jump — to the aquatic environment. This adaptation is expected to allow its application in populations with conditions that lead to reduced functional capacity, such as chronic low back pain, frailty, and others. The properties of water, including cushioning and user engagement, may offer beneficial conditions for assessing functional capacity in a global and easy-to-administer way.

🔗 Read more at https://journals.lww.com/japt/fulltext/2025/09000/equivalence_between_land_and_water_countermovement.3.aspx

14/11/2025

🎗️ Breast Cancer Awareness Month | Research that Makes a Difference

Breast cancer is not the same for every woman – understanding its differences is essential for more effective treatment.
Ana Margarida Mota, researcher at the IBEB and professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, has published a review article in Cancers on the use of artificial intelligence in breast imaging to identify the biological characteristics of each tumor without the need for invasive biopsies.
This work highlights the role of AI in personalizing diagnosis and promoting a more precise and humane medicine.

AI models can predict key tumor characteristics directly from MM and BT, showing promise as non-invasive tools to complement or even replace biopsy. However, challenges remain in terms of generalizability, external validation, and clinical integration. Future work should prioritize standardized annotations, larger multicentric datasets, and integration of histological or transcriptomic validation to ensure robustness and real-world applicability.

🔗 Read mora at https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/17/20/3387

13/11/2025

✨ In this year's Society for Social Neuroscience conference, researcher and full member of IBEB Diana Prata and 5 PhD students of her lab at IBEB (Vasco Diogo, Sonja Graf, Rafael Esteves, Miguel da Silva and Gonçalo Cosme) have presented their very exciting recent results of a robust role of oxytocin in how we respond psychophysiologically to social cues and dilemmas, including in the context of social dance and of psychosis. This work used a range of techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, eye-tracking, pupillometry and electroencephalography.