Champalimaud Foundation Receives €50MM for Construction of New Research Centre

5 September 2018

The Champalimaud Foundation announced on Tuesday that it would receive €50 million to build a research and treatment centre dedicated to fighting pancreatic cancer. The new research centre will be built on the grounds next to Champalimaud’s current premises in Lisbon and is scheduled to open in October 2020, ten years after the inauguration of the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown.

Mauricio Botton Carasso and the wife, Charlotte Botton, relatives of the founders of the company Danone, donated the funds in what is “the first time a foreign family has entrusted a Portuguese philanthropic institution with responsibility of this nature.”

The Champalimaud Foundation revealed that, in addition to the construction, the funds would be spent on research and treatment of this specific type of cancer, currently responsible for the deaths of around 1,300 people in Portugal and more than 330,000 people worldwide. Pancreatic cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer death, with some experts predicting that it will become the fourth within about a decade.

The future “Botton-Champalimaud” centre will be built next to the building designed by the architect Charles Correa and inaugurated in 2010. The Champalimaud Foundation’s Research Center for the Unknown joins the main functions of cancer research and treatment centres. The centre consists of two buildings joined by a raised walkway on the banks of the river Tagus. Lioz stone is the dominant material. The sobriety of its very light pink tone seems to reflect the calmness of the glistening river.

Original Story: Construir

Translation: Richard Turner