 My name is Irene Bozzoni, I am a Meritus Professor at the Sapienza University of Rome and I am Senior Researcher at the Italian Institute of Technology. The focus of my research activity is the study of neurodegenerative diseases and in particular to study the contribution of RNA in several processes which are aberrant occurring in such diseases. In particular we know that there is a causative link between neurodegeneration and the propensity of certain mutant proteins in ALS for instance to aggregate and by doing that these aggregates sequester a lot of important messenger RNA and proteins which have instead to be somewhere else in order to play their correct function. So we are studying what is the contact of these aggregates in normal and pathological conditions trying to learn whether there are non-coding RNAs which are able to control the process of conversion of non-pathological aggregates into pathological ones and in fact we have observed several types of non-coding such as long non-coding RNAs or circular RNA play a very important role in assembling the aggregates and in particular condition when their expression is altered to lead to pathological aggregates. So the future goal will be to manipulate such RNA and see whether their altered expression their mutation or their different modifications can influence or can be utilized as therapeutic tools for the cure of neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS. Of course there are many promising tools more we know about novel types of RNA in the cells more we know about novel functions of RNAs and more we have new ideas on how to control gene expression in a sequence specific manner. For instance we know now that circular RNA which are a recent new family of RNAs that have specific features have been covalently closed circular molecules they are very stable in the cells so one aspect that we are currently investigated for instance in the field of RNA vaccination is whether circular RNA can represent better substrate for translation than linear messenger RNA. So circular RNA through their high stability and also to the ability to be translated could represent innovative tools but besides circular RNAs there are many other activity of sort of novel RNA and novel function that RNA can play that can be utilized so I think that the major breakthrough will come in the future trying to learn more about this non-canonical function of RNA and try to convert these RNA or to engineer them in order to make them powerful tool to be utilized in therapy which means able to control gene expression in a sequence specific manner. If we have to think about the strengths and the weakness of making research in Italy I mean there are of course many point which are pro and against. I think one of major and important advantage of making a research in Italy is that we start from a cultural background our student our PhD student our post-graduated students have received a very strong education. I feel that still University in Italy is very good at least in life science I want to of course I concentrate on that topic and we have fantastic students that are very much willing to do their best to be involved in science and to dedicate themselves to science so I have to say this is one of the most important functions so there's a cultural scientific background in Italy that still I think is the major strength of Italian science and also the fantasy the idea of thinking in different manner that allows people to be very creative and also to go behind behind the many obstacles that we have and of course the obstacles are the limitation in funding and the fact that basic research in particular because when we want to think about application towards therapy human health in general we cannot refrain from thinking that you can get good application only if you do good basic science basic research and so in order to do basic research you need funding to do basic research and still that in Italy is not considered a priority so I think that that is important the other point is the salaries of the people I think that young researchers should receive better salaries and of course the last point are infrastructures I think University of scientific institution nowadays have to care very much about infrastructure and allowing people to work in places where they can find all the most updated techniques methodology and instrumentation so these I think are the major the major points that if they would change we will benefit very much Italian science will benefit very much