Draft:BIAL Foundation

The BIAL Foundation is a Portuguese foundation whose mission is to foster the scientific study of the human being from both the physical and spiritual perspectives..

It was created in 1994 by the BIAL pharmaceutical company together with the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities. It is managed by representatives from both institutions.

Over the years, the BIAL Foundation has been supporting scientific research worldwide, seeking to provide more health and reach new levels of knowledge.

Classified as a non-profit institution of public utility, the BIAL Foundation includes among its patrons the President of Portugal, the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities, and the Portuguese Medical Association.

History
Luís Portela, at the time chairman of the BIAL pharmaceutical company, began to idealize the BIAL Foundation in 1993, with the aim of supporting research in Health, the company’s area of activity, where innovation was one of the strategic lines of development. With this purpose in mind, he challenged the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities, together with BIAL, to set up and manage an independent non-profit institution, aimed to promote scientific development.

The BIAL Foundation was then established in 1994. It was the first Portuguese patronage institution, resulting from private initiative, which focused on the medical sciences. The establishment ceremony of the Foundation took place on May 6 at the Círculo Universitário do Porto, Portugal, and was attended by the President of the Portuguese Republic, Mário Soares, and the Minister of Health of the 12th Constitutional Government, Paulo Mendo.

Part of the history of the creation of the BIAL Foundation are also two names that would become crucial in its development and that integrated the Foundation’s first Board of Directors: Nuno Grande, a medical doctor, representing the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities, and Manuel Baganha, a cost accounting economist.

Scientific Board
The Scientific Board of the BIAL Foundation is chaired by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, who succeeded the neuroscientist Fernando Lopes da Silva. The Scientific Board is composed of more than 50 distinguished professors and researchers from several countries.

Ambassadors
In recent years, dozens of researchers have passed through the BIAL Foundation, helping to make it a reference in supporting scientific research, among which stand out Ralph Adolphs, Etzel Cardeña , Fátima Carneiro , Miguel Castelo-Branco , Alexandre Castro Caldas , Axel Cleeremans , Teresa Coelho , Rui Costa , José Cunha Vaz , Peter Fenwick , Teresa Paiva , Joana Palha , Dean Radin , Caetano Reis e Sousa , Chris Roe , Stefan Schmidt , Manuel Sobrinho Simões , António de Sousa Pereira and Rui Vaz.

BIAL Foundation Awards
The BIAL Foundation promotes three Awards for the recognition of scientific work: the Prémio BIAL de Medicina Clínica, the BIAL Award in Biomedicine, and the Maria de Sousa Award.

Prémio BIAL de Medicina Clínica
The Prémio BIAL de Medicina Clínica, created in 1984, is granted in even years by the BIAL Foundation to a work of high quality and relevance in medical research. In addition to the winning work, awarded 100 thousand euros, two honourable mentions can also be attributed, worth 10 thousand euros each, for works of high merit selected by the jury. At least one of the authors of the work must be a physician of a Portuguese-speaking country. The Award has the patronage and collaboration of the President of the Portuguese Republic, the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities, and the Portuguese Medical Association.

To date, the winners of the Prémio BIAL have been:


 * 1984: "Mordeduras e picadas por animais da fauna portuguesa”, Rogério Alberto Ferreira Gonzaga.


 * 1986: "Velhas doenças causas novas", Maria Francisca Soutelo Soeiro de Carvalho.


 * 1988: "Bases Psicoterapêuticas na Prática Clínica”, José Carlos Couto Soares Pacheco.


 * 1990: "O Diário do Orientador", José Manuel Falcão da Silva Tavares.


 * 1992: "Doença de Machado Joseph”, Maria Paula Mourão do Amaral Coutinho.


 * 1994: "Contribuição para a Caracterização da Ecologia e da Biologia do Sistema Timo-Dependente: Memórias, Percursos e Esboço de uma nova Teoria", Maria de Sousa.


 * 1996: Doença Inflamatória Intestinal - Da Investigação Básica à Clínica", Fernando Tavarela Veloso.


 * 1998: "Descoberta de novos genes e metabolismos hematopoiéticos: Uma nova abordagem ao estudo da hematopoiese", Manuel Jorge Vaz da Cunha Guimarães.


 * 2000: "Angiotensin II activates the Nuclear Factor- kB in vascular and renal cells. Implication for the pathogenesis of hypertension, atherosclerosis and kidney diseases", Jesús Egido, Marta Ruiz-Ortega, Óscar Lorenzo González, Mónica Rupérez Zalduendo.


 * 2002: "O Cérebro Analfabeto", Alexandre Castro-Caldas.


 * 2004: "Intratumoral Injection of Dendritic Cells Engineered to Secrete Interleukin-12 by Recombinant Adenovirus in Patients with Metastatic Gastrointestinal Carcinomas", Ignacio Javier Melero Bermejo, Guillermo Daniel Mazzolini, Jesús Maria Prieto Valtueña.


 * 2006: "Biologic platform for beta cell therapy in diabetes", Daniel Pipeleers, Bart Keymeulen, Zhidong Ling.


 * 2008: “A vision for medical research in the new era of complexity: a new multimodal integrative paradigm”, Miguel Castelo-Branco.


 * 2010: “The long fuse: silent strokes and insidious Alzheimer disease”, Vladimir Hachinski.


 * 2012: “Translating Discoveries in Basic Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Molecular Genetics into Transformative Approaches to the Diagnosis and Treatment of Currently Incurable Neurodegenerative Dementias”, Peter St. George Hyslop.


 * 2014: “From gene discovery to gene therapy in 20 years: the case of Choroideremia, an inherited retinal degeneration”, Miguel Seabra, Tatiana Tolmacheva, Sara Maia, Cristiana Pires.


 * 2016: “EpiReumaPt - Estudo Epidemiológico das Doenças Reumáticas em Portugal”, Jaime da Cunha Branco – coordenador, Ana Maria Ferreira Rodrigues, Nélia Sofia Augusto Gouveia, Mónica Seabra Dourado Eusébio, Maria Sofia Antunes da Cunha Oliveira Ramiro, Pedro Miguel Marques Cardoso Machado, Pedro Almeida Laires, Viviana Maria Rancão Roda Tavares, Ana Filipa de Sousa Pestana Mourão, Inês Maria Crispim Gomes da Silva, Filipe César Pereira Pombo de Araújo, Alexandre Rocha Sepriano, Rute Filipa Dinis de Sousa, Susana Maria Pereira de Sousa, Pedro Miguel Pereira Simões Coelho, Jorge Morais Mendes, Helena Cristina Matos Canhão.


 * 2018: “Cancro Gástrico Em Portugal - Como reduzir a mortalidade por cancro gástrico em Portugal”, Mário Dinis Ribeiro.


 * 2020: “A Paramiloidose em Portugal e no mundo: de doença fatal a doença crónica com qualidade de vida preservada”, Teresa Coelho (coordenadora), Isabel Conceição, Mónica Inês, Mamede de Carvalho, João Costa.


 * 2022: “The challenges of Neurodiversity: A Translational Journey into Personalized Medicine in Autism Research”, Miguel Castelo-Branco.

BIAL Award in Biomedicine
In 2018, the BIAL Foundation created the BIAL Award in Biomedicine with the aim of recognizing remarkable and relevant discoveries in the biomedical field. The Award, worth 300 thousand euros, is granted in odd years and aims to distinguish a work, nominated by an independent entity, with high quality and scientific relevance results published within the last ten years. The initiative has the patronage of the President of the Portuguese Republic, the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities, and the European Medical Association.

To date, the winners of this Award have been:


 * 2019: “Cyclooxygenase-Dependent Tumor Growth through Evasion of Immunity”, authored by Caetano Reis e Sousa, Santiago Zelenay, Annemarthe G. van der Veen, Jan P. Bottcher, Kathryn J. Snelgrove, Neil Rogers, Sophie E. Acton, Probir Chakravarty, Maria Romina Girotti, Richard Marais, Sergio A. Quezada, Erik Sahai. Published on Cell, Volume 162, Issue 6, P1257-1270, September 2015.


 * 2021: “Zika virus protection by a single low-dose nucleoside-modified mRNA vaccination”, authored by Drew Weissman, Norbert Pardi, Michael J. Hogan, Rebecca S. Pelc, Hiromi Muramatsu, Hanne Andersen, Christina R. DeMaso, Kimberly A. Dowd, Laura L. Sutherland, Richard M. Scearce, Robert Parks, Wendeline Wagner, Alex Granados, Jack Greenhouse, Michelle Walker, Elinor Willis, Jae-Sung Yu, Charles E. McGee, Gregory D. Sempowski, Barbara L. Mui, Ying K. Tam, Yan-Jang Huang, Dana Vanlandingham, Veronica M. Holmes, Harikrishnan Balachandran, Sujata Sahu, Michelle Lifton, Stephen Higgs, Scott E. Hensley, Thomas D. Madden, Michael J. Hope, Katalin Karikó, Sampa Santra, Barney S. Graham, Mark G. Lewis, Theodore C. Pierson, Barton F. Haynes. Published on Nature, Volume 543, P248–251, February, 2017.
 * 2021: “Glutamatergic synaptic input to glioma cells drives brain tumour progression”, authored by Varun Venkataramani, Dimitar Ivanov Tanev, Christopher Strahle, Alexander Studier-Fischer, Laura Fankhauser, Tobias Kessler, Christoph Körber, Markus Kardorff, Miriam Ratliff, Ruifan Xie, Heinz Horstmann, Mirko Messer, Sang Peter Paik, Johannes Knabbe, Felix Sahm, Felix T. Kurz, Azer Aylin Acikgöz, Frank Herrmannsdörfer, Amit Agarwal, Dwight E. Bergles, Anthony Chalmers, Hrvoje Miletic, Sevin Turcan, Christian Mawrin, Daniel Hänggi, Hai-Kun Liu, Wolfgang Wick, Frank Winkler, Thomas Kuner. Published on Nature, Volume 573, P532–538, September 2019.

Maria de Sousa Award
Created in 2020 by the Portuguese Medical Association and the BIAL Foundation, to honour the physician and researcher Maria de Sousa, this award aims to annually support young Portuguese researchers with scientific projects in Health Sciences, including a mandatory internship at an international center of excellence. Five young Portuguese researchers, up to the age of 35, are awarded a global value of up to 150 thousand euros (up to 30 thousand euros per project).

To date, the winners of this Award have been:


 * 2021: “Glycosylation of gastric cancer extracellular vesicles: its impact in cancer intercellular communication and its potential for biomarker discovery”, Daniela Freitas; “The impact of parasite sequestration in trypanosomiasis severity”, Sara Silva Pereira; “How to balance actomyosin-dependent forces to preserve epithelial tissue integrity”, Mariana Osswald; “The role of CCL2 and IL-8 in the microenvironment of pituitary neuroendocrine tumors: relationship with tumoral aggressiveness and their diagnostic-therapeutic usefulness”, Pedro Marques; “BioTribo – Exploring biomaterials as triboelectric nanogenerators for cardiovascular applications”, Andreia Pereira.


 * 2022: “Mapping neuronal ensembles of associative learning in the nucleus accumbens”, Carina Soares-Cunha; “EMERGENCE - mEMbranE tRafficking drivEs aGgrEssiveness in breast caNCEr”, Sandra Tavares; “Tracking the unconventionally secreted tau species: insights into the progression of tauopathies”, Ana Melo; “IFNγ-decoy by tumor extracellular vesicles as a mean to evade antitumor immunity and immunotherapy”, Ana Rita Cruz; “UPSEE HEALTH Project – Urban Places and Sensory Experiences of Everyday in HEALTH”, Daniela Rodrigues
 * 2023: “Glycan2B -Deciphering novel anti-glycan autoantibodies in autoimmunity: a novel call of biomarkers in Lupus”, Inês Alves; “Prefrontal Serotonin Input in Cognitive Flexibility and its ability to revert Impairments in Stress-related Disorders”, Nuno Dinis Alves; “Syncyciotrophoblast derived extracellular vesicles in Fetal Growth Restriction”, Catarina Palma dos Reis; “Using genome-wide CRISPR genetic screens to dissect the molecular mechanisms underlying therapy resistance and sensitivity in HER2-positive gastric cancer”; João Neto; “Sleep-dependent modulation of microglia cell-state in Alzheimer’s disease”, Sara Calafate.

Grants for Scientific Research
The BIAL Foundation promotes every two years a Grants Programme for Scientific Research with the aim of encouraging the neurophysiological and mental study of the human being, in the areas of Psychophysiology and Parapsychology.

From 1994 to 2023, the Foundation supported 847 projects involving 1678 researchers from 29 countries.

The approved applications will benefit from grants up to a maximum amount of 60 thousand euros, determined according to the characteristics of each project, by the members of the Scientific Board, who are responsible for reviewing applications.

Among the researchers supported by the Foundation are distinguished scientists from some of the most notable North American, European, and other universities.

"Behind and Beyond the Brain" Symposium
Since 1996, the BIAL Foundation organizes the Symposia entitled "Behind and Beyond the Brain", a Forum that gathers every two years experts in neurosciences and parapsychology, as well as several researchers supported by the Foundation

“Placebo effects, Healing and Meditation”, “Mind-matter Interactions”, “Sleep and Dreams” , “Intuition and Decision-making” , “Memory” , “Exceptional Experiences” , “Emotions” , “Enhancing the Mind” , or the most recent “The Mystery of Time”   , were some of the themes already debated in the Symposia “Behind and Beyond the Brain” by world-known speakers as Miguel Castelo-Branco (Coimbra), Axel Cleeremans (Brussels), Antonio Damasio (Los Angeles), Hoyt Edge (Florida), Peter Fenwick (London), Eberhard Fetz (Washington), Fernando Gil (Sorbonne), Allan Hobson (Harvard), Jerome Kagan (Harvard), Irving Kirsch (Boston), Stephen Kosslyn (San Francisco), Stephen Laberge (Stanford), Dietrich Lehmann (Zurich), Fernando Lopes da Silva (Amsterdam), Edwin May (Palo Alto), Robert Morris (Edinburgh), Dean Radin (Nevada), Alcino Silva (Los Angeles), Ian Stevenson (Virginia), and Robert Stickgold (Harvard).