2.5 million to drive a new era in the treatment of data generated in health research

Biomedical research is entering a new era with the integration of Network Science and Complex Systems, a field that applies advanced computational techniques to decipher the complexity of biological and artificial data at the most varied scales and dimensions.

Universidade Católica Portuguesa's (UCP) Biomedical Research Centre (CBR) has just positioned itself at the forefront of this revolution by securing 2.5 million euros from the European Commission to fund its innovative CBeRa, an ERA Chair in Network and Complex Systems Science applied to health data. This investment marks a crucial moment for the CBR and the future of biomedical research in Portugal and Europe.

The CBeRa: Strategic Integration of Complex Networks and Systems for Advancing Biomedical Research project was conceived to tackle one of the main challenges of modern biomedical research: the vastness and complexity of the data generated by state-of-the-art experimental methods. Traditional laboratory techniques, while essential, often cannot keep up with the rapid expansion of biological data, much of which remains underutilised.

‘This is where the science of networks and complex systems comes into play,’ explains Pedro Simas, Director of the CBR. ‘It provides the tools needed to uncover hidden patterns, understand the intricate relationships between components and nodes of biological systems, and detect emergent behaviours and properties that other methods cannot identify. These computational analysis techniques hold great promise for the development of predictive models that could revolutionise the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases.’

Luís Rocha, a world-renowned researcher in complex systems and computational intelligence at the State University of New York, will lead the CBeRa project. ‘CNS science is closely correlated with Artificial Intelligence, computer science and data science,’ explains Luís, who will lead this five-year ERA Chair project at the CBR from March 2025.

‘By studying the organisation, dynamics and properties at different scales of complex systems networks and from the molecular to the global scale, we can discern emerging patterns and unforeseen connections, and understand the subtle nuances that govern domains ranging from how a cell functions to speech patterns and social interactions, to the determinants of health and disease,’ adds the researcher.

Funding for the ‘ERA Chairs’ comes from the Horizon Europe Widening Programme, designed to strengthen the European Research Area (ERA). The ERA Chairs aim to provide award-winning institutions with the resources they need to attract top international talent, starting with the chair's coordinator, and help them build a team of excellence capable of significantly improving their scientific performance in the research field.

In 2023, the total budget allocated to ERA Chairs by the European Commission was 97 million euros; out of 38 approved projects, eight were awarded to universities and research institutes in Portugal. The CBR, created in 2021, is one of the youngest national institutions to receive this competitive funding.