Dr Cardoso is the Director of the Breast Unit of the Champalimaud Clinical Center (CCC) in Lisbon, Portugal. She is board certified in medical oncology and internal medicine.

Dr Cardoso earned her medical degree at the University of Porto in Portugal and completed fellowships in the Translational Research Unit of the Jules Bordet Institute (IJB) in Brussels, Belgium, and the Department of Molecular and Cellular Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. She then worked for 10 years as Assistant Professor at the Medical Oncology Clinic of the IJB and served as the scientific director of the international research network TRANSBIG for 7 years (EU Framework VI). She returned to Portugal in October 2010 to create the Breast Unit of the CCC, leading it to become the 1st certified Breast Unit in Portugal.

Her research interests include biology of breast cancer, prognostic and predictive markers, and new anticancer agents, and is involved in many phase I-IV breast cancer clinical trials. Dr Cardoso is also deeply involved in the field of global cancer policy, accessibility and inequalities, and is the founder and President of the Advanced Breast Cancer (ABC) Global Alliance, as well as the founder and chair of the ABC International Consensus Guidelines Conference.

She is also active in numerous professional organizations such as ESO, ESMO, ASCO, AACR, EORTC and E.C.O., where she serves on several committees; she was a member of the Board of Directors of ESMO, ECCO and EORTC.

She is editor-in-chief of The Breast Journal, associate editor of the European Journal of Cancer, and an editorial board member of several other journals.

She has received several educational and research grants from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the European Society of Medical Oncology, the European Cancer Organization, the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation, the Portuguese League Against Cancer, the Portuguese Ministry of Health, the Free University of Brussels, the "Fonds Jean-Claude Heuson", the Fondation Lambeau-Marteau, the Belgian Federation Against Cancer, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and the European Union.

She was awarded the prestigious Order of Santiago da Espada for Scientific Merit, from the President of Portugal, on June 10th 2015. She has also received the Flims Alumni Club (FAC) Lifetime Achievement Award 2011; the Prix Nice - St Paul 2017, for the work developed for Advanced Breast Cancer Patients; the Reach to Recovery International Health Professional Award 2019, for exceptional contributions by a health professional in the field of breast cancer support; the ABC Award 2019, in recognition of her foresight in understanding the importance of advanced breast cancer and for launching a Global Alliance against it, the 2020 Jin Xian-zhai Special Achievement Award, for outstanding contributions to prevention and treatment of human cancer, especially breast cancer, the 2020 European Breast Cancer Science Award/Emmanuel van der Schueren Lecture, the 2021 Umberto Veronesi Memorial Award, and the 2022 ESMO Women For Oncology Award.

Dr Cardoso has authored about 350 publications and has presented her work nationally and internationally.