Dr Shiva Khoshtinat is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering 'Giulio Natta' at Politecnico di Milano. With an interdisciplinary background spanning civil engineering, architecture, materials science, and biology, she explores how nature’s strategies can inspire sustainable construction on Earth and beyond. Her research focuses on biomineralization and microbial co-cultures as self-sustaining systems for construction. In a recent publication in Frontiers in Microbiology, Khoshtinat and co-authors present a bold approach for construction on Mars, harnessing microbial partnerships to transform Martian regolith into structural materials, laying the scientific foundations for building the first habitats on the Red Planet.