December, 2020

The Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, one of Portugal's most prestigious and oldest institutions of continuous existence (1779), is dedicated to promote the enrichment of thought, literature, Portuguese language and other sources of science and national culture and contributes to the development of science and cultural progress in Portugal.
The distinction granted to Isabel Moura, elected Correspondent Member, and José Moura, promoted from Correspondent Member to Effective Member of the Chemistry Section of the Academy, is the deserved recognition for a lifetime dedicated to scientific research and the international dissemination of its results. Isabel Moura and José Moura were within the main founders of Bioinorganic Chemistry in Portugal and actively contributed to the consolidation of this new area of knowledge at an international level. Both with a h-factor higher than 60 and more than four hundred papers, they were pioneers in the identification and study of new metal centres in Biology (iron/sulfur, copper, nickel, molybdenum and tungsten), having made decisive contributions to the advancement of knowledge on the Denitrification pathway, hydrogenases, aldehyde oxidoreductases, nitrate reductases, formate dehydrogenases, cytochrome peroxidases, mono and multi-haem cytochromes, desulforedoxin, rubrerythrin, desulfoferrodoxin (just to mention a few of the most cited works).
This is an honour granted only to a few Portuguese. The distinction granted to Isabel Moura is of particularly relevance, since she is the first woman elected to the Chemistry Section.
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From all your friends and collaborators: Congratulations to Professors Isabel Moura and José Moura!