Prof. B. Mario Pinto Presently President, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Prof. Pinto hails from Ontario, Canada and holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry and a B.Sc in Chemistry. He is a product of St. Joseph’s College, Colombo. He migrated to Canada when he was 13 years old and began the rest of his education in Canada. Prof. Pinto hails from a long line of Playwrights, actors, editors, poets and musicians on his maternal side. Prof. Pinto obtained his B.Sc and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Queen’s University Canada. He completed his post-doctoral work at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France and the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa, before joining Simon Fraser University in 1983.
At NSERC he augmented the agency’s dual expertise as an investor in discovery-based research and a broker of successful Research & Development partnerships with technology-driver enterprises to de-risk promising research. A seamless discovery-innovation bidirectional continuum has resulted. He led efforts to develop a new strategic plan, NSERC 2020.
Prof. Pinto has received numerous awards recognizing the quality and impact of his research, including the 1992 Horace S. Isabell Award of The American Chemical Society, the 1993 Merck Frosst Award of the Canadian Society for Chemistry (CSC) to name a few. Mr. Pinto was recently awarded a patent for his breakthrough on the effect of glycosidase inhibitors as novel therapeutic agents for Type 2 diabetes. This product has proved effective in lowering blood glucose levels in humans. He has been the Co-Host and Organizer of 11th Gender Summit, Montreal from 2000 to present.
Prior to his role as President of NSERC, he was a Professor, Chair of Chemistry and Vice President Research at Simon Fraser University (SFU), President of the Canadian Society of Chemistry and Vice Chair of the Chemical Institute of Canada. He was a well-accomplished Researcher since 1983 and had maintained an active research program even during his tenure as Vice President. His research focused on Molecular Mimicry for drug and vaccine design; Control of N-glycoprotein processing; Development of a quantitative NMR/Molecular modeling protocol; Development of vaccines against bacterial pathogens and Development of Enzyme Inhibitors as anti-viral agents for control of Type – 2 Diabetes and TB.
He has published 92 papers; 1 book, 1 book chapter; filed provisional patents; 11 patents issued; 6 proceedings; graduated 16 Ph.D. (7 co-supervised) with many, many more under his belt.