Ricardo Henriques, a Principal Investigator at ITQB NOVA (Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier, Universidade Nova de Lisboa), has been awarded €500,000 to transform live-cell imaging using artificial intelligence. The funding was granted through the CaixaResearch Health Research Call 2025, which is aimed at advancing the global fight against viral diseases.
The project, entitled “VirusAwareScopes: Machine Learning-Driven Adaptive Microscopy for Long-Term Viral Infection Studies”, will seek to create microscopes that can intelligently adjust their settings in real time. This will enable the observation of viral infection processes over several days without compromising cell viability or image quality. “The idea is for the microscopes to adjust their configurations intelligently and in real time, much like most smartphone cameras already do, but in a far more sophisticated way,” explains Henriques.
Currently, the intense light used by high-resolution microscopes damages live cells, limiting the observation window. This new technology will enable researchers to study in greater detail how viruses interact with cells, paving the way for innovative antiviral strategies. In the first phase of the project, the team will apply this approach to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which continues to raise many questions and is projected to affect millions of people in the coming years.
‘We want this technology to be implementable in any laboratory, contributing to the democratisation of science, the development of new antiviral strategies and the improvement of global public health,’ adds the researcher.
This year, the CaixaResearch Health Research Call, promoted by the “la Caixa” Foundation and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, awarded €26.6 million to 34 biomedical and health research projects, selected from 714 proposals.