Elena Conti, PhD, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich and a Vallee Visiting Professor in 2019, shares this year's Jung Prize in Medicine with Jörn Piel, MD (ETH Zurich).  The Jung Foundation for Science and Research honors ground-breaking discoveries that open new avenues in the treatment of serious diseases.

Conti researches how cells recognize and degrade defective messenger RNAs (mRNAs). She is particularly interested in disease-relevant mutations in these mechanisms, which she is decoding using the latest methods. Disorders in this process can lead to neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), certain types of cancer and genetic metabolic disorders. Her work in this field has made a decisive contribution to understanding the interplay of molecular machines. For this research, she is receiving this year's Jung Prize for Science and Research, which she shares with Prof. Dr Jörn Piel (ETH Zurich). She intends to use her share of the prize money to pursue a new, promising hypothesis on a specific mutation in the exosome complex that plays a key role in RNA degradation.

For Conti, science is a passion that she discovered over the years – inspired by excellent teachers and mentors. ‘For me, research is like a big jigsaw puzzle. You collect individual observations, put them together and suddenly a picture emerges,’ she says, describing her fascination. Away from science, she finds balance in nature or playing tennis, ‘even if my daughter always wins,’ she says with a laugh.