Professor João Mano will receive the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from University of Lorraine, Nancy, France, on December 12, 2019. This year, this honorary title was also awarded to two other scholars, from Belgium and Australia, from the areas of contemporary literature and electrical engineering.

João Mano is a full professor at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Aveiro, where he is the director of both Master and Doctoral Programmes in Biotechnology. He belongs to the associate laboratory CICECO – Aveiro Institute of Materials where he is directing the COMPASS Research Group, founded in April 2016.

His current research interests include the use of biomaterials and cells towards the development of therapeutic solutions in the context of regenerative and personalised medicine. In particular, biomimetic and nano/micro-technology approaches, and chemical modification routes, have been applied to natural-derived biomaterials in order to obtain biomedical devices with improved structural and (multi-)functional properties, or in the engineering of microenvironments to control cell behaviour and organization, to be used in therapies or in drug screening.

João Mano published more than 600 publications in international journals and presented invited more than 100 talks in international scientific events. Professor João Mano supervised or co-supervised 57 MSc students, 22 PhD students, and 40+ post-doctoral fellows.

He has been in the editorial board of about 10 international journals and he is the Editor-in-Chief of Materials Today Bio (Elsevier). He has been coordinating or involved in many national and European research projects, including an advanced (ERC-AdG) and a proof-of-concept (ERC-PoC) grants financed by the European Research Council.

Connections to University of Lorraine

The interaction of João Mano with the University of Lorraine started in 2013, with scientific collaborations that initiated with the group of Dr. Franck Cleymand, at Institut Jean Lamour, in the area of soft-matter and nanotechnologies applied to advanced biomedical applications.

On the educational side João Mano was able to interact with engineering students from École des Mines of University of Lorraine, where he was involved in the creation of a new course on “Biomimicry: from life to nanotechnological innovations” that has been functioning since 2014. For that, he received a position of International Invited Professor, in the context of the fund “Ambition 2016” followed by the title of Professor@Lorraine in 2018.

He was awarded with a prestigious Gutenberg Chair in 2019, supported by the Great East Region of France, that will allow to enhance the collaborative efforts with University of Lorraine during 2020.

The session will be attended by Paulo Jorge Ferreira, Rector of UA, Armando Silvestre, director of DQ, and João Rocha, director of CICECO.