Extremophiles and Extreme Microbiomes for Sustainable Bioprocessing and Bioinnovation

Extreme environments are natural laboratories for biological innovation. Microorganisms and microbial communities that inhabit hot springs, hypersaline systems, acidic or alkaline habitats, metal-rich sites, deserts, deep subsurface environments, and long-term anaerobic systems have evolved remarkable strategies for survival, growth, and function. These include robust enzymes, specialized metabolic pathways, stress-response networks, biofilm formation, mineral interactions, and complex community-level adaptations. Such features make extremophiles and extreme microbiomes valuable resources for developing technologies that must function under conditions where conventional biological systems are limited. Despite growing knowledge of their diversity and molecular mechanisms, many of these systems remain underexplored for practical applications, leaving significant opportunities to translate fundamental discoveries into real-world biotechnological innovation.

This Research Topic aims to explore how extremophiles, extreme microbiomes, and their biomolecular systems can be discovered, understood, engineered, and applied for sustainable bioprocessing, agriculture, environmental biotechnology, resource recovery, and bioinnovation. It seeks to connect fundamental and applied research by highlighting studies that move beyond descriptive biology to demonstrate functional relevance, process scalability, or translational potential. By integrating cultivation, omics, and bioengineering approaches, this collection encourages the identification of novel enzymes, pathways, and biological systems that can drive sustainable production, remediation, or value creation in diverse industrial and environmental contexts.

To gather further insights into the mechanisms and applications of life in extreme environments, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

- Discovery, enrichment, cultivation, and characterization of extremophiles and extreme microbiomes across natural and engineered settings
- Molecular, physiological, ecological, and community-level mechanisms underpinning adaptation to thermal, saline, acidic, alkaline, metal-rich, nutrient-limited, and anaerobic conditions
- Omics-guided discovery of enzymes, pathways, and bioactive compounds with biotechnological potential
- Discovery, engineering, and application of extremozymes for robust biocatalysis and process-intensive biotransformations
- Sustainable bioprocessing, biomanufacturing, and production of value-added chemicals, fuels, and biomaterials using extremophilic systems
- Use of extremophile-based bioinputs for soil health, nutrient cycling, crop stress tolerance, and resilient agriculture
- Extremophile-driven waste valorization, biodegradation, remediation, and recovery of metals, nutrients, and critical resources
- Biofilm formation, virome interactions, and biomineralization processes in extreme and engineered systems
- Computational modeling, biosensors, AI/ML tools, techno-economic and life cycle assessments, and scale-up strategies for extremophile-based platforms

We welcome original research articles, reviews, mini-reviews, perspectives, and methods papers covering these areas.