Maria do Céu Patrão Neves is Professor of Ethics, President of the National Ethics Council for Life Sciences, Vice-President of the European Group of Ethics in Science and New Technologies, Member of the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST), of UNESCO, of the Steering Committee for Human Rights in the fields of Biomedicine and Health (CDBIO), of the Council of Europe, and of the Academy of Sciences. She is also an Ethics Expert and Project Evaluator for the European Commission, and has published 38 books (authored and edited), authored more than two hundred articles in national and foreign journals and in collective works. She was an advisor to the President of the Republic and a Member of the European Parliament.