Greg Cook is a world-leading authority on the metabolism and energetics of microbial growth and how these essential processes could be targeted to produce new strategies aimed at combatting microorganisms in the agricultural sector responsible for causing animal disease (e.g., mastitis) and greenhouse gas emissions in soil and ruminant animals. The goal of this work is to break the link between human and agricultural use of the same classes of antimicrobials and safeguard against the potential for antimicrobial resistance determinant transfer via the food chain. Greg leads a group of 30 researchers at the University of Otago and has published over 250 peer-reviewed journal articles and reviews. Greg has been widely recognised for his research and is a Fellow of the Royal Society New Zealand, James Cook Fellow, 8th Sir William Dunn Fellow (Cambridge), and Chair-elect, Gordon Research Conference on Bioenergetics (2023), and is current Director of the Maurice Wilkins Centre for Molecular Biodiversity. Greg has trained and mentored over 150 graduate students and junior scientists.