Paulo Melo graduated in Dental Medicine in 1986 from the School of Dental Medicine of Porto, and in 2002, he completed a PhD in Conservative Dental Medicine from the Faculty of Dental Medicine of the University of Porto (FMDUP). He has been working as a dentist since 1986. He has been teaching at FMDUP since 1996/1997, and has been a Full Professor since 2023. At the Faculty of Health Sciences of the Fernando Pessoa University (UFP), between 2002 and 2005, he was Scientific Coordinator of the Bachelor's in Dental Medicine. Between 2007 and 2010, he was a member of the Directive Council and director of the FMDUP’s dental clinic, and is currently the Dean of the FMDUP and President of the Scientific Council and the Pedagogic Council of FMDUP.

Furthermore, he has been developing research in national and international projects, in areas such as Restorative Dentistry, Cariology, Public Oral Health, and recently COVID-19 in Dentistry, which resulted in several scientific publications. He is currently an Associated Researcher, member of the research group "Life Course Perspective on Oral Health" of the EpiUnit, being part of the Associated Laboratory for Integrative and Translational Research in Population Health (ITR).

Since 2002, he has been collaborating in several projects with the Portuguese Directorate-General of Health and the Portuguese Ministry of Health, regarding research and promotion of Oral Health. Among those projects, he participated in the National Oral Health Promotion Program, in the Task Force appointed by Health Minister Correia de Campos in 2007 for the development of an innovative national public oral health program, known as the Dentist Voucher, in the Oral Cancer Early Detection Program, and in the III National Epidemiological Study on Oral Disease. Internationally, he has collaborated with the WHO as an external expert and in several projects with the World Dental Federation (FDI) in research and promotion of Oral Health and has participated in several multicentre projects. He has been involved in two EU-funded projects named DELIVER and PRUDENT since August 2022 and February 2023.

He has been involved in leadership positions within the Portuguese Dental Association (OMD) since 2001, as a member of the Board of Directors (2001-2009), as Secretary-General (2009-2016 and as president of the General Council (2016-2020). Among several responsibilities, he was the chair of the Working Group for COVID-19 in Dentistry of the OMD from March to July 2020, which resulted in several recommendations being published. He also integrates the National Agency for Medicines and Health Products within Dental Medicine of the INFARMED, I.P. (Portuguese National Authority of Medicines and Health Products), from 2013 to 2016.

At the international level, he was an elected member of the Board of Directors of the Council of European Dentists (CED), from 2016 to 2022, and Chair of the Working Group of Education and Professional Qualifications of the CED, from 2014 to 2022. He was a member of the FDI Council from 2018 to 2024, was coordinator of the Task Force for COVID-19, and of the Task Force organizing the celebration of World Oral Health Day on March 20, and was vice-chair of the FDI Public Health Committee from 2014 to 2018. He has participated as an expert in several meetings of the WHO, ORCA (Organization for Caries Research), ADEE (Association for Dental Education in Europe), and EFP (European Federation of Periodontology), among others. He was a member of the ORCA-ADEE working group for defining the Cariology curriculum in Europe between 2010 and 2011

He is a member of several scientific associations, has participated in more than 100 Conferences and Courses, and has published more than 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals. He is an Editorial Board member and reviewer of several national and international journals.