2013 Pessoa Prize awarded to a scientist

Maria Mota, a researcher at the Institute of Molecular Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine in Lisbon, is the winner of the 2013 edition of the prestigious Pessoa Prize.

The Pessoa Prize jury highlighted Maria Mota's contribution to malaria research and "her enthusiastic commitment to what can be called citizenship of science", as founder and former president of the Associação Viver a Ciência, which aims to encourage philanthropy in Portugal.

Maria Mota, selected in 2012 for an FCT Researcher contract, heads the Malaria Unit at the Institute of Molecular Medicine (IMM). With a degree in Biology from the University of Porto, she did her PhD at University College London, where she began studying the mechanisms by which the malaria parasite, Plasmodium, infects and survives in the host's cells, causing this devastating disease. After a period of highly successful post-doctoral research at New York University Medical Center, he returned to Portugal, to the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, before taking up his current position at the IMM.

The award recognizes the exceptional scientific career of Maria Mota, who has published several important studies in leading scientific journals. She has received numerous national and international awards from institutions such as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (USA), the European Research Council and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.