Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI), a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at Berkeley Laboratory, have published a study in Science Advances that evaluates the current state of microbial genomic biodiversity. Using publicly available genome sequence data generated over the past three decades, their study assesses what fraction of the microbial diversity we know about, and proposes a path forward to curate and cultivate what is still unknown.