Maria Leonor Parreira is Full Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon. She is also a member of the School Council and of the Scientific Council and directs the Institute of Histology and Developmental Biology of the same Faculty.
A specialist in haematology, she stopped her hospital career early in order to dedicate herself exclusively to teaching and research. She taught clinical classes to students of years 4 and 6 of the Medical Degree and Molecular Biology and Histology to students of the first years.
Pro-Rector for research at ULisboa, she was president of GAPIC, succeeding its creator David Ferreira. In 1996, Leonor Parreira created thus the second working group to coordinate GAPIC.
She held the presidency of the Society of Medical Sciences of Lisbon, was director of the Gulbenkian Ph.D. programme for clinical doctors, and is a full member of the Portuguese Academy of Medicine. She was also part of the Evaluation Panel for Doctoral and Post-Doctoral Scholarships in Health Sciences of the Foundation for Science and Technology, assuming its co-ordination with Rui Victorino for 6 years. She is the author of several scientific publications, in international and national journals.
In the 31st year of life of the Office for the Support of Scientific, and Technological Research and Innovation, we recalled the origin of the great plans that wanted to combine teaching with science. Being a Faculty that inspired others to do the same, science was showing medicine that it completed it, allowing students, future doctors, to be able to take a more agglutinating step, developing clinical reasoning alongside the laboratory foundation.
“GAPIC has fulfilled its main objectives”, this is clear to Leonor Parreira, but there is still work to be done so that doctors can continue to extend their action to research. A woman who took over the political commands at the State Secretariat of Science, she says, with some caution, that the little funding there is, is now almost exclusively focused on Covid-19, and she questions the state of all other research projects that wait to be funded again.
Being a woman in a predominantly male medium and among big names like David Ferreira or João Lobo Antunes never made her feel less recognized, as the medium belonged to both, since in fact science does not distinguish between genders.
This was the time spent with the Professor, who is excited by the discoveries and continues to defend that “there is no better education than education through Science”, a motto well recognized by our host, GAPIC.
This is the historical account that is recorded to remember a group of names that left so much to science, the country and to research, in the voice of one of its representatives, Leonor Parreira.
Joana Sousa
Sofia Tavares
Editorial Team