Pedro Assis, a professor at Instituto Superior Técnico and director of the Laboratory of Instrumentation and Experimental Particle Physics (LIP), has been awarded funding by the “la Caixa” Foundation under the 2025 edition of the CaixaImpulse Innovation programme. The €50,000 grant will be used to develop a new device designed to increase the safety and effectiveness of cancer treatments.

The project, led by the Particles4Health research group at LIP, focuses on creating a real-time monitoring system for FLASH radiotherapy, an emerging cancer treatment technique. FLASH delivers very high doses of radiation in extremely short bursts, enabling effective tumour treatment while reducing damage to healthy tissues and minimising side effects.

For this technique to become clinically viable, the team is developing a device based on the Cherenkov effect, capable of measuring radiation with great speed and accuracy, even at ultra-high dose rates.

“This funding is recognition of our team’s work and an opportunity to bring research closer to concrete health solutions. We believe that this technology can help make cancer treatments safer, more effective and more accessible”, highlights Pedro Assis.

Selected from 428 applications in Portugal (and Spain), the project is one of 31 initiatives supported by the CaixaImpulse Innovation programme, created in 2015. In total, the “la Caixa” Foundation will invest around €3.8 million in biomedicine projects. The funding includes financial support, mentoring, and specialised training, which promotes the transfer of biomedical research with potential clinical and market applications.