Maria Manuela Estevez Pintado is a Professor of the College of Biotechnology of the Portuguese Catholic University (ESB-UCP) since 2005. In 2017, she became the director of CBQF (Chemistry and Biotechnology Center – State Associate Laboratory), a ESB UCP research unit as well as Associate Director of ESB UCP. She was a member of the Research and Internationalization Group of UCP (2014-2016). She has established strong interaction with industry and she has been Coordinator of Department of Scientific Services for Industry (SETIF) (2013-2016). Additionally, she has been an invited professor at Paraíba Federal University (2012 and from 2014 to 2016).
She has a B.Sc. in Pharmacy from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto (1991) and finished her Ph.D. in Biotechnology (in the field of Food Science and Engineering) from the Portuguese Catholic University in 1999. In the same year (until 2002) she obtained a Post-doc research position. She coordinated the Task Force of Dairy Products of the College of Biotechnology Industry Association (AESBUC; 2000-2005).
Among other vant activities some are highlighted: Coordinator of the partnership and Project Amyris-UCP (since 2016), Member of IBET advisory Member (since 2016), of the Strategic Group for AgroFood, Forest and Biodiversity and of the of Strategic Group for Circular Economy nominated by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Vice-President of the Scientific Council for Natural and Environmental Sciences (CCCNA) of Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), one of the four Scientific Councils established between 2013-2016, Coordinator of the Evaluation Committee of Final Reports of FCT projects for Biological Engineering and Biotechnology area (since 2013), Vice-President of European Chitin Society (2013-2017), Chair for SIG (Special Interest Group) – Bioactive Compounds of ISEKI Food Association (since 2014), member of the Nacional Chilean Evaluation Committee for post-graduate studies (since 2016), member of the Evaluation Committee for PDSE Scholarships (Brazil, 2014 and 2016), member of the Evaluation Committee for FCT Scientific (Doctoral and Post-doctoral) grants (2016), evaluator of research grant applications for the India-Israel joint research program (2016, through the invitation of the Israel Science Foundation), for AGROPOLIS Foundation-EMBRAPA research projects (2015, through the invitation of Agropolis Foundation) and for research projects financed by the CZECH Science Foundation (2012) and by the ALIA – Food and Food Industries Research Program of the French National Agency for Research (2009) as well as for several national calls promoted by the National Agency for Innovation (ANI, since 2010) and FCT (2015).
Her research interests include Biotechnology and Biochemistry - carry out research in a range of key technologies for the production, characterization, and preservation of industrially/traditionally processed products. The research can be summarized into: (i) development and compositional characterization and validation of bioactivity of functional ingredients (proteins and biopeptides, antioxidants, probiotics, prebiotics and antimicrobials) and study applications on the development of novel functional foods (ii) by-product upgrading through bioprocesses and extraction processes aiming to obtain high-added value products (iii) microbiology and biochemistry in food field, including key technologies for the production, characterization, and safety issues of products and (iv) application of the above research developments to other Biotechnological fields.
During her scientific trajectory, she published several papers (currently ca. 300 papers) in refereed international journals and authored 35 chapters in handbooks on these topics, has an h-index of 31 and is a creator of 20 patents.
She has participated in several professional meetings and international symposia and congresses presenting ca. 130 invited oral communications and over 120 selected oral communications and about 370 posters in National and International conferences. She supervises(ed) or co-supervises(ed) 48 MsC, 47 PhD thesis and 25 Post-doc scholarships as well as 27 international training scholarships, 6 national training scholarships and 68 research grants. She has been a part of 16 Ph.D. evaluation panels and over 34 M.Sc. evaluation panels. Additionally, she has been responsible for the coordination and co-coordination of 87 externally funded (through national and international funds) research and development projects and has been involved in collaborations with multiple Universities and Research Centers, companies and Associations/technology clusters. Given her overall curricular merit she has been recognized by the Ciência Viva program as one of the female faces of the Portuguese science community in its book dedicated to Portuguese scientist women.