Cláudia Ferreirinha was inspired to follow a career in science when she took part in a Ciência Viva work placement when she was in her second year at secondary school. “Being able to see a working scientific laboratory over two weeks made me realise that this type of activity was what I wanted to work on in the future”. At just 23 she has completed a degree in bioengineering and is now one of the winners of the Promoting Research Award from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Her award winning work was on the detection of bacteria to reduce research costs. “The aim was to define a process to implement and design a Lab-on-chip device to identify E. coli bacteria in water by determining an enzyme that is characteristic of this type of bacteria”, she explains.

“This device is being developed by INESC TEC and it will make it possible to quickly detect and specify this organism with much lower costs that in current methods”, she adds.

Cláudia Ferreirinha believes that career difficulties are the same all over the world: “Here in Portugal we conduct high quality research that has been internationally recognised in various areas of science.”

Correio da Manhã, 19th February 2012