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U.Porto Memory

University of Porto Famous Alumni

Luís Archer

Luís Archer 1926-2011 Geneticist, Jesuit priest and teacher

Luís Jorge Peixoto Archer was born in Porto on 5 May 1926.

During his childhood, he attended the Rodrigues de Freitas High School and the Music Conservatory, where he studied piano. In 1947, he graduated in Biology Sciences at the University of Porto, and shortly after he joined the Company of Jesus.
At the young age of 19, he became an Assistant and dedicated himself to scientific research. At the same time, he fulfilled an old dream: he became a Jesuit.
At the Company of Jesus, he chose the study of Human Sciences, completing his degree in Philosophy at the Faculty of Theology, in Braga, in 1954.
In 1960, he graduated in Theology and was ordained priest in Frankfurt, Germany.
He then taught at Colégio das Caldinhas and Colégio de S. João de Brito, from where he was transferred to the Laboratory of Biochemistry at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto.

To pursue the advancements in New Genetics, in the 1950s, he travelled to the United States of America. In 1964, he enrolled in the University of Georgetown to study Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, and completed the PhD in Molecular Genetics at that establishment in 1967.

From 1968 on, he was dedicated to promoting this area of research in Portugal, and introduced it for the first time at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto and at the Faculty of Pharmacy, between 1968 and 1971. In Porto, he became Assistant and Assistant Professor and took his PhD in Biology at the Faculty of Sciences in 1969.

Between 1971 and 1991, he created and headed the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, in Oeiras, and rose to the position of Tenured Professor in Botany, at the Faculty of Sciences of Porto, in 1971.

In the two following years, he worked as Visiting Professor at the renowned M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), in the USA.
Later, between 1979 and 1996, he was transferred from the University of Porto to the University of Lisbon, to become Full Professor of Molecular Genetics at Universidade Nova.

This brilliant scientist, and man of faith, taught Molecular Genetics in more than thirteen faculties, edited many scientific articles on Bioethics and Molecular Genetics, coordinated four collections and wrote six books, among which "Da Genética à Bioética" [From Genetics to Bioethics], in 2006.
He is an honorary member of six scientific Portuguese and foreign societies, an effective member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, of Salzburg, and of the New York Academy of Sciences, in the USA.

He died at the age of 85 in Santa Maria Hospital in Lisbon on 8 October 2011.
(Universidade Digital / Gestão de Informação, 2008)