About

About Me

I am a scientist, entrepreneur and builder. For more than three decades, I have moved between genomics research, clinical translation and company creation, from Portugal’s first clinical oncogenomics laboratory to CE-marked diagnostic products and, more recently, the development of precision medicine infrastructure in the Gulf.

My work sits at the intersection of science and execution: taking ideas that are ready to become real and building the systems that allow them to do so. I hold a PhD in Biomedical Sciences and have worked across research institutions, national infrastructures and private companies in multiple countries. Along the way, I have led research groups and core facilities, founded companies, secured competitive funding, and built the regulatory, quality and operational foundations required to bring diagnostics from discovery into clinical practice.

Today, I operate primarily across Lisbon, Barcelona and the Gulf region. My interests span diagnostic innovation, health systems, venture creation and the translation of scientific knowledge into practical impact. I also write, both nonfiction and fiction, because writing remains one of the most effective ways I have found to explore ideas, challenge assumptions and understand what I am building and why.

My personal motto, “Better life through technology”, reflects a broader belief in the power of science, data and knowledge to improve both human and planetary health. Beyond my professional activities, I remain engaged in discussions about science, society and development, with a particular interest in the Global South and in how evidence-based thinking can help shape better institutions, policies and long-term outcomes.

The Questions That Drive My Work

Throughout my career I have been drawn less to individual technologies than to the systems that allow them to create value.

• Why do some scientific discoveries transform medicine while others remain confined to journals?
• How can countries build the capabilities needed to translate knowledge into better healthcare?
• What role do companies, investors, institutions and policy play in that journey?
• How do ideas move from discovery to implementation, from laboratories to patients, from ambition to impact?

These questions have taken me through science, entrepreneurship, diagnostics, venture creation, writing and public-interest initiatives. They continue to shape the work I do today, whether I am building diagnostic platforms, exploring health sovereignty, supporting innovation ecosystems, or writing about the future of healthcare and society.

Domains of Activity

The questions above manifest themselves through several interconnected domains of activity. While these areas may appear distinct, I increasingly see them as different expressions of the same underlying interest: how knowledge, institutions and innovation combine to create lasting impact.

→Diagnostic Innovation

I have long been fascinated by diagnostics because they determine when, how and whether medical decisions are made. Few areas of healthcare have a greater influence on patient outcomes, yet diagnostics often remains underappreciated relative to therapeutics and medical devices.

For me, diagnostics sits at a unique intersection of science, medicine, technology and decision-making. It is where biological insight becomes actionable knowledge, and where advances in genomics, molecular biology, artificial intelligence and data science can be translated into better care for patients. Throughout my scientific career, I have repeatedly been struck by how much we can learn simply by measuring the right thing, and by how little medicine still measures relative to what is now technically possible.

I was deeply influenced by the announcement of the completion of the Human Genome Project during my doctoral studies, and later by the emergence of personalised and precision medicine that this achievement made possible. Those developments reinforced my conviction that better measurement leads to better understanding, and ultimately to better decisions.

My work in this field has spanned research, laboratory medicine, product development, clinical validation, regulatory pathways and commercial implementation. Increasingly, however, my interest extends beyond individual tests or technologies to the broader challenge of translating diagnostic innovation into real-world impact, from discovery and validation to adoption, scale and health system integration. It is time for precision medicine to become a reality, and that requires ensuring that the science discovering new biomarkers and disease algorithms ultimately reaches the patients who stand to benefit from it.

→Health Systems & Sovereignty

My interest in health and scientific systems emerged from a simple observation: scientific excellence alone does not guarantee real-world impact. Countries and regions must also build the institutions, capabilities, infrastructure and incentives that allow innovation to reach patients and communities.

Over the years, I have been fortunate to work alongside people building such systems at local, regional, national and international levels, and to contribute to some of those efforts myself. These experiences, together with the opportunity to learn from exceptional scientists, entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers and institution-builders, have given me a unique perspective on how scientific, clinical, industrial and policy capabilities interact, and on the challenges of turning ambition into durable capacity.

These experiences gradually led me beyond individual technologies and towards broader questions of resilience, capability building and sovereignty. How should countries develop the capacity to generate, adopt and sustain critical health technologies? How can scientific, industrial and regulatory capabilities be aligned to create lasting value?

While much of my recent work has focused on diagnostics, I see these questions as part of a larger challenge: building health and scientific systems that are not only effective, but also capable of shaping their own futures.

→Venture Creation

In an age when entrepreneurship has become a destination in itself, for me it has simply been an attitude: a practical mechanism for translating ideas into impact. While scientific discoveries create possibility, companies, institutions and ecosystems are the vehicles that transform possibility into reality.

Throughout my career, I have founded and led ventures, built laboratories, innovation platforms and non-profit organisations, secured funding, assembled multidisciplinary teams, and worked at the intersection of science, regulation, healthcare and business. These experiences have strengthened my belief that successful innovation depends as much on execution, incentives and organisational design as it does on technology itself.

I am increasingly interested in science-driven venture creation as a discipline in its own right, not only as a means of building companies, but also as a way of creating new capabilities, connecting ecosystems and accelerating the adoption of innovations that can improve lives.

→Writing & Ideas

Writing has always been one of my primary tools for thinking. It served as a way of clarifying ideas, testing assumptions and exploring questions. As I use it to make sense of and challenge my scientific and entrepreneurial work, writing has also become one of the ways I discover where it should go next.

My writing spans diagnostics, health systems, innovation, technology, development and the future of healthcare, but the underlying themes are often the same: how knowledge becomes impact, how institutions shape outcomes, and how societies navigate technological change. Some of these explorations take the form of essays and articles, others become books, frameworks or new ventures.

→Fiction & Creative Work

I write fiction under the name J.P. Leal. My novels explore ambition, transformation, identity, and the consequences of venturing into unfamiliar territories. Some questions emerge directly from my professional work, others from history, philosophy, science, or simple curiosity.

Fiction allows me to explore dimensions of the human experience that cannot be addressed through science alone. It is a space for imagining alternative futures, examining difficult choices, and following ideas to places where data, analysis and evidence can no longer provide definitive answers. In that sense, it complements my scientific and entrepreneurial work.

Learn more on my Fiction page.

Geographies

Europe is where I was trained as a scientist and entrepreneur, and where much of my professional network remains rooted. I continue to be inspired by the continent’s scientific excellence, strong research institutions, and deep tradition of knowledge creation. At the same time, Europe faces important challenges in translating discovery into large-scale economic and societal impact, a challenge that has increasingly shaped my interests and work.

The Gulf is one of the most ambitious health and innovation environments in the world today. What first attracted me was the region’s willingness to think at scale and to pursue long-term transformation. Over time, I became increasingly interested in how Gulf countries are building new capabilities in healthcare, science and technology, and in the opportunity to contribute to that journey through diagnostics, venture creation and ecosystem development.

Beyond any specific region, I remain interested in how emerging economies in the Global South can build scientific, healthcare and innovation capabilities without necessarily following the historical paths taken by more developed nations. Questions of access, capacity building, technology adoption and institutional development remain central to my thinking about health, development and long-term prosperity.

Today, I operate primarily between Lisbon, Barcelona and Doha. Together, these locations provide a unique vantage point from which to explore the intersections of science, entrepreneurship, innovation and health systems across different cultures, economies and stages of development.

Current Focus

My current work is centred on five interconnected themes:

• Translating diagnostic innovation into real-world impact.
• Building scientific, healthcare and industrial capabilities in emerging ecosystems.
• Science-driven venture creation and ecosystem development.
• Strengthening connections between European and Gulf innovation environments.
• Exploring the future of healthcare, technology and society through writing and public discourse.

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I remain fundamentally curious about new ideas, new collaborations and new ways of creating impact. If any of the questions explored on this site resonate with your own work, I would be pleased to continue the conversation.