Full Professor of Ethics of the University of the Azores (Portugal), President of the National Council of Ethics for the Life Sciences (Portugal), Vice-chair of the European Group of Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE, European Commission), Member Steering Committee for Human Rights in the fields of Biomedicine and Health (CDBIO, Council of Europe), of the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST, UNESCO), of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences.

She was consultant on Ethics of Life for the President of the Portuguese Republic, Member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Bioethics. Currently she teaches at different Universities and is a member of several Ethics Committees, also coordinating international projects, namely within Africa-EU partnership.
Ethics expert and project evaluator for the European Commission, and Ethics Advisor and Chair of Ethics Advisory Boards (EAC) of several European Research Projects.

Authored and/or coordinated 39 books, including the 14-volume collection dedicated to Applied Ethics (2016-2018), and the Dictionary of Global Bioethics, with Henk ten Have (2021), and hundreds of papers, delivered over 400 conferences.

She is a regular columnist in regional and national journals. Member of the European Parliament (2009-2014).