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U.Porto Memory

University of Porto Famous Alumni

Daniel Serrão

Daniel Serrão 1928-2017 Medical Doctor and professor

Daniel dos Santos Pinto Serrão was born on 1st March 1928, in S. Dinis, Vila Real, of a civil servant engineer, Manuel Morais Serrão, and a housewife, Arminda dos Santos Pinto Trindade.
He finished his secondary education with a grade of 18 out of 20, and, in 1951, he earned his Medicine Degree with a grade of 17 out of 20. He finished his PhD in 1959 at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, with a grade of 19 out of 20. He retired on 1st March 1998.

Daniel Serrão married in 1958 to Maria do Rosário de Castro Quaresma Valladares Souto, with whom he had 6 children; one of them died in 1994. He presently has 9 grandchildren.
He began his career at the infirmary of the old Pathology service of the Santo António hospital. Between 1967 and 1968 he spent a brief period in Angola, but dedicated most of his time to teaching at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, between 1952 and 2005.
He was dismissed from his job as University teacher and Director of the hospital service on 23rd June 1975, accused of collaborating with the PIDE/DGS. However, he was reinstated to the same job one year later. In the meantime, he opened a private pathology laboratory; thus was such a success that he only sold it in 2003.

He focused his activity on medical ethics and bioethics in general. He has participated in several organizations, including the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee, the Steering Committee on Bioethics of the Council of Europe, the National Council on Ethics for Life Sciences and the Pontifical Academy for Life.
He is also renowned as the writer of hundreds of books and articles, and as an internationally recognised specialist in the fields of hepatic pathology, liver regeneration, kidney biopsy and oncology.

Daniel Serrão has conducted extensive research, the most important of which is the one he started with his Doctoral thesis on liver pathology.
He retired compulsorily at the age of 70, but continued to teach at the Master courses of the Bioethics Institute and the Faculty of Philosophy of the Portuguese Catholic University.

An optimistic catholic, provided with an immense working capacity and will to help, he considers that family is the vital driving force behind his activity. As a supporter of life, he stands against abortion and euthanasia, and supports the embryo and the cryopreservation of the umbilical cord stem cells.

Daniel Serrão died in Porto, in the early hours of January 8, 2017.
(Text by Raquel Maria Guilherme Guedes Pinheiro de Magalhães, 2008)