Dr. Armando Azua-Bustos is Researcher of the Center of Astrobiology of the Spanish National Research Council , where he’s working to find and characterize the microbial species that are able to survive under the extreme conditions imposed by the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. In the past few years, a range of different lifeforms have been discovered by Dr. Azua-Bustos in the Atacama, showing fascinating adaptations to extremely low water availability, high UV radiation, high salinity and other environmental stresses. For these same reasons, the desert is considered as an analog model of the planet Mars, where instruments and rovers are being tested before being sent to the red planet. Dr.Azua-Bustos is a TED Fellow, having given a TED talk in 2017 and four other TEDX talks. He earned a PhD in molecular genetics and microbiology as well as an MSc in biological sciences and an MSc in biochemistry. Dr Azua-Bustos has recently reported that due to climate change important parts of the Atacama are experiencing rains as never recorder before, which is causing the completely unforeseen local extinction of the unique microorganisms that inhabit the soils of the affected regions. Armando will discuss the potentially disastrous effects this can have for the search of new antibiotics produced by such bacteria.