A new study published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences has investigated how low doses of ionizing radiation, that can affect tissues and organs near a tumour during cancer treatment, may influence the formation of pre-metastatic niches in the lungs. This process involves changes in the lung tissue that make it more receptive to disseminated breast cancer cells settling and growing there later on – forming metastasis.

On May 15th and 16th, 2025, the iSTARS project hosted its second international meeting — the iSTARS Health AI Summit – at Lisbon Medical School, bringing together a diverse community of health professionals, researchers, students, data scientists, and patient advocates to explore how data and artificial intelligence are shaping the future of medicine and healthcare.

iSTARS team has been awarded funding under the FCT (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) “Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Cybersecurity of relevance to Public Administration” call to develop an advanced clinical decision-making support tool to predict disease progression in oligometastatic breast cancer patients.

University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Medicine has been awarded the "Human Resources Excellence in Research Award" by EURAXESS, The recognition marks a significant milestone for the institution and iSTARS.

João Carlos Guimarães, a newly arrived researcher at FMUL, was chosen to lead a research team under the ERA Chair iSTARS project! Find out more in this interview.

You can now watch our conference on Gender Mainstreaming in Medicine and Medical Research on YouTube!

Portuguese artist Sérgio Eliseu was one of the names invited to participate in the Blend sessions with a piece called "Digital Twins". The piece was on display at the Egas Moniz Building and allowed the public to create an interaction with the Digital Twin concept.

Maged K. Boulos is the Professor chosen to assume the main project of the ERA Chair iSTARS. The ERA Chair iSTARS has as its main objective the promotion of data science as a research tool in health and medicine, through the creation and consolidation of an internationally recognized data science unit of excellence.

The webinar “The iSTARS Project: an opportunity to develop a data science programme in health and medicine”, organized by the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon (FMUL), took place on 20 April 2021, with an audience of 121 researchers from different countries.