Ricardo Franco-Duarte (RFD), born in 1982 in Porto, embarked on his scientific journey with a BSc in Biology, igniting a passion for genetics and molecular biotechnology. He completed his Master's Degree in Molecular Genetics in 2008, achieving the highest score (20/20), and a prize for that achievement. After his PhD (2014), he transitioned to establish himself as an independent researcher at CBMA, forming a group focused on yeast omics, biotechnology, and bioinformatics, strengthened by international collaborations in place, with groups from Slovenia, Germany, France, Australia, and Denmark. His research group motto is "Wouldn't it be great if we could have omics tools and data mining techniques that could consider everything that is happening in yeast´s metabolic pathways, at a certain moment, and build predictive models with which we could have enlightening discussions?". Recently, RFD has a contract as an assistant researcher, won after a competitive call (FCT CEEC-IND 2022; DOI: 10.54499/2022.00340.CEECIND/CP1718/CT0018) in which he obtained the highest national score (10/10). Throughout his research career, RFD has been involved in numerous impactful projects, both as PI and team member, such as European projects TRANSBIO and VOLATILE. He has also played a vital role in mentoring emerging scientists, supervising 6 PhD theses, 15 master's theses, and 14 BSc theses. In his role as an Assistant Professor at the University of Minho, Franco-Duarte teaches subjects such as Microbiology, Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics, blending theoretical knowledge with practical insights. His commitment to scientific communication is evident in his participation in conferences, with 82 posters and 37 oral communications to his credit. ____Additionally, RFD was recently selected as mentor within the International Mentoring Foundation for the Advancement of Higher Education (IMFAHE) Programme, a team-member of the WP07 within the ARQUS European Alliance, and as member of the 2 COST actions CA20127/WIRE and CA22134/FoodWaStop. ____He has authored 47 scientific articles in Q1 journals - h-index of 20 (Scopus) and 24 (GoogleScholar), plus 5 book chapters. His work has been recognized through various awards and honors, highlighting the impact of his research, such as the prize for the youngest researcher with the best CV (2018). ____In his most impactful research, RFD made significant contributions to yeast omics. He authored a pioneering publication that proposed computational methods for integrating various yeast omics data (DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2016.05.080), where he coined the term "pheno-metabolomics." This work revolutionized yeast omics research. Additionally, he was part of a consortium studying the adaptation of S. cerevisiae to fermented food environments (DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msy066, Molecular Biology Evolution), a highly cited piece. ____Notably, his discovery and description of 2 new yeast species have brought significant advances to the field, together with recent studies in non-conventional yeasts' genomics and metabolomics, and the impactfull expansion of CBMA yeast collection (+3000 yeast species/strains). RFD´s group published also 2 papers (Bettencourt et al., Microorg., and Miranda et al.,BMC Microrg.), showing the potential of yeasts to produce single cell oils and new methods to screen large yeast collections. Additionally, RFD published several papers of high impact on the yeast research community, where his group developed and applied new tools for yeast genome annotation and evolutionary analysis, and developed methods to improve yeasts metabolism using ALE. Looking forward, RFD continues to focus on microbial biotechnology, blending experimental and computational methods to advance our understanding of microbial systems. His career is a testament to his lifelong pursuit of knowledge, discovery, and contribution to the scientific community.