María Amparo Pascual López

Cuban biostatistician and physician, recognized primarily for having founded the National Coordinating Center for Clinical Trials in Cuba (CENCEC) in 1991.​

Pascual initially studied medicine and wanted to specialize in surgical procedures, but ultimately decided to pursue a specialization in biostatistics, a branch of statistics applied to biology and medicine. After obtaining her degree, Pascual became Cuba's first biostatistician.​

In 1991 she founded the National Coordinating Center for Clinical Trials in Cuba (CENCEC), a research and technological innovation organization responsible for the clinical evaluation of pharmaceutical, natural, and biotechnological products.​ In 2011, the World Health Organization accredited Cuba's public clinical trials registry, a database created by CENCEC, concluding that the registry meets international requirements.

Pascual stepped down as director of CENCEC in 2014 to begin working as a management consultant and researcher at the same center, as well as director of the Research Ethics Evaluation System Project. She has also served as a professor in the Center's postgraduate clinical trials program and in bioethics at the University of Medical Sciences in Havana.

Cuban biostatistician, director of the National Coordinating Center for Clinical Trials in Cuba (CENCEC).

Contribution: for more than 20 years, she has headed clinical trials in Cuba, a field in which the island is a leader in the region. At CENCEC, which she founded in 1991, she conducts the clinical tests required to register and commercialize medical-pharmaceutical or biotechnological products in Cuba and other countries.

What has been said about her work: in 2011, the WHO accredited Cuba's public clinical trials registry, a database that CENCEC created with the help of Cuba's health network. The WHO highlighted "that the island has a registry that meets international requirements." Cuba "constitutes an example for the Americas region."

On her career: "I am a fortunate person, because after completing my social service as a physician I had the opportunity to study and be the first specialist in Biostatistics in my country. (...) Mostly focused on Research Methodology, on raising the scientific rigor of research, on the organization of science in Cuba's public health and in the last 30 years dedicated to clinical trials, initially in the field of oncology and later in all specialties."

About herself: "A woman who believes she knows what she wants, who is constant and above all persistent. What I have achieved has been the product of effort and the ability to bring together a work team, more than any special talent. I feel there is still much for me to accomplish but I am very satisfied with life, I have great faith in the future, I greatly value the present (...) and I never have enough time."

The best that has happened to her professionally: "Being the founder of a scientific organization of more than 21 years and that already transcends the national sphere and not having studied surgery as I intended to when I graduated, which made me explore a wonderful world in Science."

The best part about being a woman: "First, being a woman gave me the possibility of being the mother of a wonderful daughter who followed the example of her mother, father, and grandparents. The challenge I must face every day, simply because I am a woman, since one does not always find the same understanding, and this makes us grow in what we do."