Visiting the Portuguese Brain Imaging Network (BIN) Node

In June 2025, some of the Euro-BioImaging Hub staff attended the Annual congress of the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR) in Lisbon, Portugal, for reaching out to cancer scientists and make them aware of the services available at the Infrastructure supporting their research. While in Portugal, the Med-Hub Head of Operations Alessandra Viale and the Med-Hub Scientific Project Manager Erika Cerutti took the opportunity to travel to Coimbra on June 16^th to visit the Brain Imaging Network (BIN) Node, hosted at Institute for Nuclear Sciences Applied to Health of the University of Coimbra (ICNAS).

Meeting the Node staff & Scientific Ambassador

Miguel Castelo-Branco (node coordinator) and Joao Castelhano (assistant researcher and Node manager) kindly organised an intense and productive day, including meetings with the Node staff and visits to the facilities.

After a few hours of interesting exchanges with Miguel, Joao, Jose Sereno (preclinical imaging), our scientific ambassador Vanessa Coelho-Santos (intravital imaging) and Sulaiman Abuhaiba (EUCAIM project), during which the Node staff provided some updates on ongoing activities and showed interest in future initiatives, Alessandra and Erika presented the latest opportunities from Euro-BioImaging and were introduced to the technical team and guided through the different facilities that are part of the Node.

Cutting-edge imaging equipment

The BIN node is equipped with cutting edge imaging technologies and offers open access to PET and MRI technologies for both preclinical and human imaging, primarily in the field of neuroscience but also oncology and cardiology.

The preclinical imaging unit is located within the animal facility. It includes two PET scanners, a 9.4T MR system that can be combined with other physiological measures within the MR core, a Photoacoustic Imaging scanner and a tomograph to evaluate the correlation between the retina and the brain disorders. Additionally, the facility features a behavioral room to monitor social behavior in mice, for example, in studies related to neurological disorders such as autism. 

The BIN Node has a great experience in human imaging and clinical trials. It is equipped with two PET and one 3T MRI scanner, that can be used in parallel for bimodal PET/MRI and also in conjunction with EEG to perform simultaneous EEG/fMRI and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and other monitoring systems for functional imaging.

Interestingly, the Node staff, in collaboration with other departments, develops in-house devices to improve the performance of the existing equipment. For example, they are developing a novel PET detector for human brain imaging in collaboration with the Physics Departments, which will increase the PET resolution up to 0.1mm, and in the preclinical facility they are using an in-house olfactive stimulation system allowing to expand the range of functional studies that can be performed.

ICNAS also hosts two cyclotrons and the radiopharmacy delivering a wide range of radiotracers that support the needs of all of Portugal.

The expertise at the BIN Node is impressive and the enthusiasm of the staff towards serving science and innovation is felt in the air. 

And what better conclusion than a short tour of the old University of Coimbra with its amazing baroque library!

Many thanks to Miguel, Joao and all the staff for a great visit, in every respect!

From left to right: Joao Castelhano, Alessandra Viale, Erika Cerutti, Miguel Castelo-Branco in front of the ICNAS.

Joao Castelhano, Alessandra Viale, Erika Cerutti in front of the Coimbra University in an after-work relaxed moment.