Aura Aguirre-Beltran is a microbiologist who, through her work in the evaluation of interventions for the control of infectious diseases, became increasingly passionate about capacity development for health systems. She was awarded a PhD in Medical Parasitology by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), University of London (UK) in 1999 and as a postdoctoral fellow and later as a lecturer, gained experience in the use of molecular approaches for detection, characterization and control of trachoma and sexually transmitted diseases in low-and-middle-income countries. Dr Aguirre-Beltran became Head of the Sexually Transmitted Bacteria Reference Unit at Public Health England (now UKHSA) in 2015 and though her continued interest in capacity development for control of emerging threats, became involved with the European Public Health Microbiology Training Programme (EUPHEM) at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). She is based at Statens Serum Institute (SSI) in Copenhagen (DK) since 2020, where she is working in the area of One Health preparedness and continues being part of the EUPHEM Fellowship Scientific Coordination team from ECDC.