Luciana Albuquerque is a microbiologist and microbial taxonomist whose work sits at the interface of extreme-environment discovery, culture-based microbiology, and genome-informed systematics. She earned a BSc in Biology (1996) and an MSc in Cellular and Molecular Biology (Microbiology, 2001) from the Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Coimbra, and completed a PhD in Biosciences (Microbiology) at the University of Coimbra in 2021. From 2002 to 2025 she conducted research at the Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC-UC), where she has been a key steward of microbial biodiversity, organising and maintaining a private culture collection of over 4,000 cryopreserved extremophilic isolates. Her research focuses on microbial life in extreme environments, including hot springs and hypersaline systems, and on the taxonomy and systematics of extremophiles, combining field sampling with rigorous laboratory characterisation. She has helped organise multiple expeditions in extreme habitats and developed strong expertise in isolation, cultivation and long-term preservation of microorganisms. A defining strength of her profile is mastery of polyphasic characterisation, integrating phenotypic, chemotaxonomic, genotypic, phylogenetic and genomic approaches that underpin internationally accepted descriptions of prokaryotes. Through collaborations with national and international teams, she has contributed to the description, classification and reclassification of more than 50 taxa across ranks, helping to expand and refine the microbial “tree of life.” Her scholarly output includes 59 peer-reviewed papers (9 in the last five years), 25 as first author and 5 as corresponding author, reflecting scientific maturity and responsibility for study design, coordination and delivery. Notably, she co-authored 48 book chapters (9 in the last five years), including 35 chapters in Bergey’s Manual of Systematics of Archaea and Bacteria, the cornerstone reference in prokaryotic taxonomy. Citation impact (h-index): 25 in Scopus; 31 in Google Scholar. She has participated in ten competitively funded research projects, co-supervised BSc and MSc students, and is a co-inventor on an international patent (EP1526180A1) covering large-scale recombinant production of the extremophile-derived compatible solute mannosylglycerate. This compound is a high-performance stabiliser of enzymes and other biomolecules and has been reported to mitigate a-synuclein aggregation relevant to Parkinson’s disease. She has received two congress awards for best communication and provides continuous peer-review service for multiple microbiology journals; in 2020 and 2021 she was recognised as an “Outstanding Reviewer” by the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology (IJSEM), a leading journal in prokaryote taxonomy. Is deeply committed to safeguarding and adding value to the extremophile culture collection she has curated and maintained, and to driving its evolution from a research-held archive into an internationally recognised microbial biological resource. Her aim is to couple rigorous, standards-driven curation and authentication with genome-supported characterisation, enabling controlled access and reuse by the global scientific community. She seeks to maximise its impact as a platform for discovery, supporting new taxonomy, comparative biology, and the translation of extremophile biodiversity into biomedical and biotechnological innovation.