Professor Peixoto is best known as a founding architect of coral probiotics, a field that barely existed as a coherent discipline little more than a decade ago and has since grown into one of the most dynamic areas of applied microbial science. Her research group demonstrated that the microbial communities associated with corals, often described as the coral microbiome, could be deliberately manipulated, restored and rehabilitated through the introduction of beneficial microorganisms. This concept, sometimes summarized as microbiome engineering for conservation, transformed the way scientists think about protecting reef ecosystems under the accelerating pressures of ocean warming, acidification and pollution. Rather than viewing microbes solely as agents of coral disease, her work reframed them as therapeutic partners, offering what her team has described as the only sustainable potential medicine capable of protecting and restoring coral reefs at a meaningful scale.

The implications of that reframing have rippled outward across the life sciences. The success of coral probiotics catalyzed broader research programs into probiotics for wildlife more generally, opening investigations into whether beneficial microbes could be deployed to support amphibians threatened by chytrid fungus, bats affected by white-nose syndrome, and countless other species whose health is entangled with their microbial partners. In this sense, Professor Peixoto’s influence extends well beyond reef science. She has helped establish a conceptual framework, microbiome restoration, that treats microbial communities as manageable components of ecosystem health, a perspective that is now informing conservation biology, veterinary science and environmental management on multiple continents.

Professor Peixoto currently serves as a Professor at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or KAUST, in Saudi Arabia, where her laboratory has become a global hub for marine microbiome research. From this base, her team has moved from laboratory proof-of-concept to field application, a transition that represents one of the most technically demanding steps in translating microbial science into conservation practice. The group is now testing the automated application of probiotics in pilot trials in the Red Sea at a site known as the Coral Probiotics Village. These trials are designed to assess not simply whether individual coral colonies respond to probiotic treatment, but how the entire reef ecosystem responds, an approach the team describes within a One Reef Health framework that integrates coral, microbial and environmental indicators into a single holistic assessment of reef condition.

The automation component of the Red Sea trials deserves particular attention, because it addresses a central criticism of early intervention ecology: that laboratory successes rarely scale to the field. Automated delivery systems, if validated, could allow probiotics to be applied across reef tracts during thermal stress events, when corals are most vulnerable to bleaching and the dysbiosis, or microbial imbalance, that accompanies it. By monitoring the response of the whole reef rather than isolated fragments, the researchers hope to generate the ecological evidence base needed to determine whether probiotic interventions can complement, or in some cases substitute for, other reef restoration strategies such as coral gardening and assisted gene flow. The work sits at the intersection of microbiology, ecology, engineering and climate science, and it exemplifies the kind of applied, solution-oriented research that AMI has long championed.

Professor Peixoto arrives at the AMI presidency with an exceptionally dense record of international scientific leadership. She has recently completed a term as President of the International Society for Microbial Ecology, one of the flagship organizations in the field, and has served as Co-Chair of the Conservation Committee of the International Coral Reef Society. In the latter role, she led the Society’s climate delegations to the United Nations COP conferences, translating reef microbiology into policy language for the international climate negotiations. That experience in science diplomacy is likely to shape her presidency, particularly given her stated ambition to strengthen AMI’s partnerships with other scientific societies and to amplify a united voice for the importance of microbes in global decision-making.

Her connection with AMI itself is deep and reciprocal. In 2023, she was named the winner of the Society’s inaugural Rachel Carson Prize for microbiology, an award established to recognize a scientist who has used microbiology to advance understanding of ocean biodiversity or to develop solutions that conserve and sustainably use marine resources in support of sustainable development. The prize was presented at the prestigious EMI lecture held at BMA House in London on November 16 of that year, an occasion that marked both the launch of a new AMI award tradition and the recognition of a research program whose societal relevance was becoming impossible to ignore. The prize’s namesake, whose 1962 book Silent Spring helped ignite the modern environmental movement, makes the award a fitting symbol for a scientist whose work seeks to apply microbial knowledge to the protection of natural systems.

Professor Peixoto’s collaboration with her predecessor, Professor Jack Gilbert, has also left a lasting institutional mark. Together, the two served as the first co-chairs of the newly formed Species Survival Commission Microbial Conservation Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a body created to safeguard and restore microbial diversity and function across Earth’s ecosystems. The group’s founding premise is that microbes constitute the invisible foundation of life and a cornerstone of planetary and human health, yet they remain largely absent from mainstream conservation frameworks. By building a formal IUCN structure dedicated to microbial conservation, Peixoto and Gilbert have begun the slow institutional work of embedding microbiology into biodiversity policy, a project that complements her new role at AMI. Their collaboration extended into public communication as well, with Professor Peixoto becoming the first interviewee in The Microbiologist magazine’s Under the Lens video series, sitting down with Professor Gilbert at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to discuss how coral reef research and the expanded idea of microbiome restoration could change the world.

In her first statements as President, Professor Peixoto emphasized both continuity and ambition. She described taking on the presidency as an honor and a pleasure, and committed to building on the work already underway, strengthening the Society’s close partnerships with other scientific organizations and initiatives, and maintaining a united and increasingly powerful voice for the importance of microbes and microbiology. Crucially, she signaled a shift in emphasis from demonstration to implementation, arguing that the field must move beyond simply showing what microbes can do and become a stronger force for action, helping translate outstanding microbiological research into solutions and tangible benefits for people, society and the planet. She framed that ambition as the very heart of Applied Microbiology International: connecting excellent science with impact, and working together to turn what is possible into what is actually achieved.

AMI Chief Executive Dr Lucy Harper welcomed the new President, noting that she becomes the fifth female President of the Society and praising her global profile, energy and innovative approach, which Harper said would make it easy to push forward the science of applied microbiology as the organization moves into its next strategic period. Harper highlighted Peixoto’s commitment to diversity and her collaborative style as assets for the Society’s strategic ambitions and values as it approaches its centenary year. Under the Society’s governance structure, the President plays a pivotal role in shaping strategic direction, provides leadership to the Board of Trustees and, alongside the Chief Executive, serves as an ambassador representing AMI in external partnerships. AMI also publishes The Microbiologist magazine and, in partnership with Oxford University Press, three internationally acclaimed journals, and it provides funding to encourage research, broaden participation at its events and ensure that diverse voices are represented in efforts to address the sustainable development goals it has chosen to support. For a society with global reach and a two-century-scale institutional memory, the election of a scientist whose career embodies the translation of microbial science into planetary solutions represents a deliberate statement about where applied microbiology is heading next.

Subject of Research: Appointment of coral probiotics researcher Professor Raquel Peixoto as President of Applied Microbiology International

Article Title: Applied Microbiology International announces new president, Professor Raquel Peixoto

Article References: Applied Microbiology International announces new president, Professor Raquel Peixoto. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: Raquel Peixoto, Applied Microbiology International, coral probiotics, microbiome restoration, KAUST, coral reefs, Red Sea, microbial conservation, IUCN, International Society for Microbial Ecology, Rachel Carson Prize, Jack Gilbert