With such a vast and diverse background, that spans molecular biology and ecology, what key moments would you highlight as having most shaped your research interests and academic/scientific choices?
My interest in research started when I was a kid. I was incredibly curious about how nature worked, from the behavior of ants to underwater life and the chemistry behind the colors of plants. My favorite Christmas gifts as a child were a small microscope and chemistry and mineral kits. Biology was always my chosen field, although at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (FCUP), as a student, I didn’t initially envision becoming a scientist. Back then, more than 90% of biology graduates became teachers. The contact with organisms during taxonomy classes, particularly animals (as my initial training was in Zoology), and the fieldwork in Ecology shaped my scientific path toward ecology, especially to understand how aquatic ecosystems functioned. My final degree project was carried out in the saltpans of Aveiro, where I studied plankton ecology and its impact on salt production. Finding economic and social value in research has always been one of my interests, whether through early work on plankton in northern Portugal reservoirs to improve resource management, or my PhD in cyanobacterial toxicology, which led to the inclusion of these parameters in Portuguese water quality legislation and the development of a national monitoring program for cyanobacteria and their toxins in drinking water. Joining CIIMAR in 2001 was the defining moment that shaped my scientific career. It exposed me to a multidisciplinary environment with colleagues from various institutions. It was then that I created my research group and began growing in terms of securing funding and human resources, promoting research and service provision in key areas like ecotoxicology, environmental quality, and more recently, blue biotechnology.

You currently lead the Interdisciplinary Centre for Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR). Combining biotech innovation with marine biodiversity conservation is surely a priority. In your opinion, how can we balance the sustainable exploitation of marine resources with the preservation of the ecosystems that support them? Beyond scientific challenges, what ethical concerns arise?
Leading CIIMAR, a position I’ve held since 2013, has enabled me to implement an action plan that encompasses understanding the ocean across its physical, chemical, and biological dimensions. This is essential to better grasp how it functions and the impacts it faces due to global changes largely driven by human activity. Sustainable use of marine resources is only possible if we understand them well and apply approaches that minimize impacts and rely on a circular economy model. Biotechnology plays a key role here: it offers nature-based solutions for restoring degraded ecosystems and allows for the use of marine bioresources to develop new products, processes, and services that address societal problems. Global fishing efforts have plateaued for over 40 years now because further exploitation would push species toward undesirable extinction. This is why sustainable aquaculture is being developed to meet the needs of a growing global population. Offshore and land-based aquaculture are currently the most viable options. We’re investing in the domestication of new species and in formulating functional diets with alternative protein and fatty acid sources, like algae and insects, as well as including pre and probiotics to strengthen organisms’ resistance to disease and ensure more sustainable protein production. Other key research areas at CIIMAR include ocean monitoring to support the expansion of marine protected areas and multi-purpose use of offshore wind energy platforms.

Aquatic microbial resources hold tremendous potential for developing innovative solutions, from new medicines to cosmetics and agricultural products. Are we on the path toward optimizing this potential to improve human life quality?
The sustainable use of living resources inevitably involves microbial resources, which can be cultivated in labs or at industrial scale without harming ecosystems (unlike historical practices of extracting terrestrial plants or marine invertebrates for pharmaceutical purposes). Microorganisms are an endless source of novel molecules with biotech potential. They’ve existed for billions of years and have survived in extreme and hostile conditions unfit for most known macroscopic organisms. They’ve developed highly diverse chemical machinery that’s useful for pharmaceuticals and also for other industrial and environmental applications. Thanks to molecular tools, we can now map the genomes of these “molecule factories” and produce them in labs without having to isolate or culture the microbes themselves. Furthermore, we now have more knowledge and expertise in isolating and cultivating these organisms, even from extreme environments, and in maintaining them in culture collections accessible to the global scientific community. I’d like to highlight CIIMAR’s Blue Biobank, which includes two living microorganism collections: LEGE_CC, one of the world’s largest cyanobacteria and microalgae collections, and CM2C, a collection of heterotrophic bacteria that includes hundreds of strains capable of degrading environmental contaminants or producing novel biotech-relevant molecules. Controlled production of these microorganisms in bioreactors allows us to optimize molecule production.

Marine biotechnology has a promising future, with many growing fields. Which questions or research directions currently motivate you the most? In the near future, what could we identify as key catalysts for decisive changes and impacts, not only scientifically, but societally as well?
We first have to talk about the bioresources with the greatest potential: micro- and macroalgae, bacteria (via cultivation), and higher organisms like fish and invertebrates, especially using by-products from fishing and aquaculture industries. Then we should consider both established and emerging sectors: aquaculture, environmental restoration and bioremediation, human and animal nutrition, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, new materials, textiles, and footwear. We must think globally. Since Portugal doesn’t yet have a strong biotech industry, we need international collaboration. But I believe Portugal has the conditions to become an international hub for biotechnology in the medium term: we possess largely untapped and diverse natural resources, highly qualified human capital, recognized scientific and innovation capacity, and an attractive, safe country with a high quality of life. We need to attract large international companies to establish themselves here by showcasing these strengths. Doing so will create skilled jobs, help retain national talent, and create sustainable value from our bioresources.

Even though our society is increasingly aware of global and environmental challenges such as climate change or marine pollution, are there perhaps less-discussed challenges you believe need urgent attention?
There’s still a lot to be done, and that’s why our science literacy programme is extensive and impactful, reaching around 150,000 people annually. We need more people to truly know the ocean. More than just visiting the beach and enjoying the seaside, people must understand what lies beneath that blue horizon. Respect comes from knowledge. We must change habits; for instance, more than 90% of plastic pollution in the ocean originates on land. Clean-up campaigns on beaches have little effect on overall pollution, but they raise awareness about reducing single-use plastic. The biggest challenges are promoting sustainable, seasonal, and local consumption whenever possible. If we consume more seasonal food from the sea and land, we reduce our carbon footprint and CO₂ emissions. Eating fruits and vegetables out of season regularly doesn’t make sense nor is it sustainable. Likewise, shifting to a lower-animal-protein diet by consuming quinoa from Peru or soy from the U.S. or Brazil isn’t sustainable either. The same logic applies to seafood. Consuming algae from China or Korea, or salmon from Chile, isn’t sustainable in the long term. Changing consumption habits is a huge challenge. Another is harmonizing the various uses of the ocean, ensuring fishing, marine protected areas, aquaculture, renewable energy, tourism, and maritime transport can coexist effectively.

Among your remarkable professional, academic, and scientific achievements, you’ve also played active roles in prestigious national and international institutions. You currently serve on the Scientific Council for Natural and Environmental Sciences at FCT, the Scientific Council of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, and the advisory boards of the Portuguese Blue Bioeconomy Association (Blue BioAlliance) and Ciência Viva. From this perspective, are scientific institutions sufficiently heard in policymaking for sustainable change? Has scientific knowledge been effectively translated into concrete political action?
I believe progress has been made, but we still have work to do and it’s increasingly up to us to open that path and make our contributions. I learned this during my PhD when I mapped the occurrence of toxic cyanobacteria in Portuguese freshwater, particularly reservoirs and rivers used for drinking water. My results were significant and worrying, completely unknown to the authorities at the time. After publishing them in prestigious international journals, I took them directly to the Ministries of Health and Environment. Fortunately, I had capable counterparts, and a few years later, these parameters were included in Portuguese legislation, ahead of most European countries. We must learn to translate our knowledge into terms policymakers and decision-makers at regional, national, and international levels can understand. Currently, I co-coordinate the Regional Smart Specialization Platform of CCDR-Norte in the area of Marine Resources and Economy. Along with dozens of colleagues from other institutions, we help shape regional funding models for this crucial economic sector. As part of a major project funded by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), the Blue Innovation Pact, I’m coordinating the formation of a national network, Portugal’s Blue Biobank. Together with NOVA School of Law, we’re also helping develop legislative proposals to regulate access to marine bioresources, which will soon go to Parliament. We must seize created opportunities and become the drivers behind their creation.

Such a curriculum that also includes the organisation of over 50 Environmental Education activities, alongside responsibilities in evaluating research projects both nationally and internationally, reflects a hands-on, results-oriented mindset. What do you consider to be the most important factors for the success of a research project? In your opinion, what are the best practices and strategies to secure funding?
Environmental education, or environmental literacy, as I prefer to call it, is one of the fundamental pillars of CIIMAR as a scientific institution dedicated to knowledge production. It is, nowadays, a crucial tool to ensure that the results of a project or a doctoral thesis carry real value and societal impact. Today, a research project must generate new knowledge, which may or may not have an immediate application. We must understand that researchers need the creative freedom to ask questions whose answers may not necessarily solve a problem. That is why it is so important to fund what we call fundamental research. At the European level, we have funding from the European Research Council (ERC) that serves this purpose, but in Portugal, such funding is practically non-existent. At CIIMAR, we have created a type of small-scale project called "out of the box" precisely to fund unconventional ideas, which do not necessarily have to lead to an immediately applicable result. However, we are increasingly being called upon to solve concrete problems, and therefore, a project that arises from a real need is more likely to succeed and to have immediate impact. Engaging with companies or institutions in need of specific solutions is a promising path. They present us with the problem, and we attempt to find the solution, and these are co-creation projects.

The new generations of researchers are the future of scientific renewal, knowledge creation and knowledge transfer. What would you say are the greatest challenges and opportunities facing young scientists in marine and environmental sciences? How do you seek to cultivate critical thinking and the ability to innovate among your research teams, students and young researchers?
That is also a significant challenge. A scientific career is neither easy nor particularly financially attractive and, while it has improved recently, it still lacks long-term stability. To follow this path, one must have a true passion for science. One must be passionate about having the creative freedom to answer the questions that live in our minds, questions that may serve to change the world in our own way, and on our own scale. Ambition is key. Ambition drives us to find funding sources, projects and services aimed at solving real problems. Questons that affect us and everything around us. A sharp critical mindset is essential. Being a scientist is not about following formulas, that’s the role of a technician, which is in itself vital to the creative process. A scientist creates new “recipes”, paving the way for new knowledge with global impact. We must be ambitious enough to see ourselves as agents of change. We are influencers with knowledge. We are trendsetters, and not the kind that fade away after one event. A scientist is not afraid to fail. Failing is frustrating, but it’s part of the growth and innovation process, because when we fail, we rule out that path. A scientist does not settle, they disrupt. Not out of rebellion, but because they are never entirely satisfied with the outcome. We feel joy in a good result, we share it with our peers, but the very next day, we want more. A scientist is infectious, we want those beside us to shine with us, and to walk this path. And later, forge their own. Nothing is more rewarding than seeing our students, postdoctoral researchers, and team members grow into their own independence, even if it takes them elsewhere. They become our ambassadors, and through them, we continue to shine.

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