 Elena Conti is Director of the Department for Structural Cell Biology at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Germany. Professor Conti is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization and of the German Academy of Sciences. In 2008 Conti was awarded the Leibniz Prize, the most prestigious prize awarded to researchers in Germany. Elena Conti stands out as one of the best structural biologists of her generation. Her research focuses on the regulation of gene expression in eukaryotic cells and aims to discover the mechanism behind RNA recognition, metabolism and degradation which is coupled to the translation machinery. She has authored several influential scientific papers, many of which have been published in Cell or Nature. So the major impact of our research has been in the fields of RNA surveillance and RNA degradation in understanding how large molecular machines protein complexes work in recognizing RNAs that are either defective or are no longer needed. This is an important mechanism for ourselves to prevent the accumulation of RNAs that would otherwise be harmful. And in fact, defects in these decayed machines are connected to many human pathologies. Now to understand the mechanisms we use biochemistry and structural biology approaches and one of the major machines that we've been working on over the years is the RNA degrading exosome. This is a major RNA decay machineries that's involved in the decay of many different types of RNAs and we've been working over the years to understand how it's built and how it functions. My relation with our university is in multiple levels. The person who started the work on the exosome at the time on the archaeal exosome is Lisbon Lawrence and at the time was a postdoc in Milan and he's now a professor here at Torres University. And as we progressed from the archaeal to the eukaryotic systems, we started to collaborate with Torben Heikjensen who has discovered most of the adapters of the nuclear exosomes in human cells and together and together with him and together with Jens Andersen, we have secured a grant from the Novo Nordics Foundation, a challenge program to establish the exodapt center here in Oroos which has brought our research to a different level. Professor Elina Conti is one of the most outstanding structural biologists of her generation. Over the years, Elina Conti has visited Aarhus University on many occasions. She has had extensive collaboration with many scientists at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics and with these strong ties to Aarhus University, I'm very happy and confident that Elina Conti and her research group will inspire research as Aarhus University in the future. I see Elina as one of the best structural biologists of her generation, always keen on taking up important scientific questions. Elina is such a curious and interactive and pleasant person who's really joyful to discuss with. It's really a scoop that the AU has honored this doctorate.