Prof. Federico Lauro from The Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering visited SOIREE to explore collaborations on microbiomes. Prof. Federico Lauro has an aptitude matched with a passion, to discover the ways in which microorganisms evolve, adapt and function to drive the ecological processes that are critical for sustaining the health of global marine environments. He has purposefully developed skills in both experimental and computational sciences – in particular, deep-sea microbiology, and the latest “omic” technologies that are essential for deriving a clear and thorough understanding of microbial communities and ecosystem function.  Importantly, Lauro has also gained an expert level of proficiency in microbial genomics – this has been achieved through the pursuit of creating bioinformatic tools for analyzing and modelling large datasets, involving a broad range of PERL-programming and implementation of open-source software. Along with his pursuit of marine microbial environments, Lauro is extending his exploration of microbial environments to that of the air microbiome.