Júnia Schultz | PhD
@JuniaSchultz
Postdoctoral Fellow @megblab #KAUST 🇸🇦 Environmental Microbiome | Extreme Environments | Microbial Culturability // she/her 🇧🇷
KAUST Microbial Vault: Proud and happy to lead this effort with CoE Smart Health and my PIs @Rosado_AS & @peixotors. Over 3,400 isolates from extreme and diverse environments now preserved and organized to support research in health, agriculture, climate resilience and beyond.


ISME is delighted to celebrate Janet Jansson’s outstanding lifetime contribution to microbial ecology and her enduring legacy in the field with the Tiedje Award. 🔗isme-microbes.org/winner-of-the-… #MicrobialEcology #microbes #isme20
Survival Strategies Of Rhinocladiella Similis In Perchlorate-rich Mars Like Environments astrobiology.com/2025/06/surviv… #astrobiology #Mars #Microbiology #extremophile
In #Microbiome 🚀Exploring how NASA's mission spacecraft assembly cleanrooms host 26 novel bacterial species 🦠These microbes form biofilms, resist various stressors & hold biotechnological potential 🚨doi.org/g9h7sx
Last week we also had the Inaugural KAUST Center of Excellence for Smart Health Conference! @Rosado_AS showcased the KAUST Microbial Vault that I have been organizing for the last couple months. Excited about the future of this Vault 🧫


Microbes that can survive space? KAUST just helped discover 26 of them. Professor Alexandre Rosado (@Rosado_AS) and postdoctoral fellow @JuniaSchultz uncovered dozens of new bacterial species inside #NASA spacecraft cleanrooms—places designed to be nearly sterile. These tough…
Paula (@Paulastrobio) also defended her Master thesis, and brilliantly presented the potential of the Red Sea hydrothermal vents as analogue to icy moons. I am so proud of everything she accomplished last year! It was great to witness her growth, and happy to be part of it ✨




Last week I had two students defending their Masters thesis! Tahani worked with phages from extremophiles, and even with lots of challenges to induce them, she thrived and defended a beautiful thesis ☺️ I love to actively guide and support grad students! Super happy for Tahani!




🌍🌟 Huge congrats to Dr. Mariangela Hungria – the 2025 World Food Prize Laureate! Her work in sustainable soil health through biological nitrogen fixation is changing agriculture worldwide! 🎉 #FoodPrize25
Extremotolerant Bacteria Identified In The NASA Phoenix Cleanroom astrobiology.com/2025/05/extrem… #astrobiology #genomics #Microbiology #planetaryprotection #Mars
“These findings not only raise important considerations for planetary protection but also open the door for biotechnological innovation. Space travel provides an opportunity to study microorganisms that possess relevant stress-resistance genes.” Read more: phys.org/news/2025-05-t…
Tough microbes found in NASA cleanrooms hold clues to space survival and biotech phys.org/news/2025-05-t… via @physorg_com
Video abstract summarizing the main insights of our paper! vimeo.com/1067457233 @KAUST_BESE @Rosado_AS @KaustResearch @KAUST_News
Just published! Even NASA cleanrooms—designed to be ultra-clean—harbor resilient, novel bacteria. 26 new species were found, some forming biofilms, resisting radiation, and producing biotech-relevant compounds. Check it here: microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…
Just published! Even NASA cleanrooms—designed to be ultra-clean—harbor resilient, novel bacteria. 26 new species were found, some forming biofilms, resisting radiation, and producing biotech-relevant compounds. Check it here: microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…

Check our new paper #Kaust #NASA and other amazing collaborators: Genomic insights into novel extremotolerant bacteria isolated from the NASA Phoenix mission spacecraft assembly cleanrooms rdcu.be/elCG6