On March 1st 2011, Rui Nobre received the 2010 Bluepharma/Universidade de Coimbra for his doctoral thesis. The jury, chaired by surgeon Manuel Antunes, elected Rui Nobre's thesis as the best doctoral thesis in the field of Health Sciences, presented in Portuguese universities in the 2008-10 period.
The work lead to the «development and clinical validation of an effective and low cost technology, which can detect with high sensitivity, all types of human papillomavirus [HPV], identify the specific type of virus and classify it according to his oncogenic risk». This technology was developed in the Coimbra’s Cancer Centre, validated in the international reference laboratory for the study of HPV (Heidelberg, Germany) and subjected to an international patent.