Udo Bläsi is Professor of Molecular Microbiology, Chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunobiology and Genetics and Coordinator of the FWF funded Special Research Program on “Modulators of RNA Fate and Function” (2001-).He obtained a Masters Degree in Biology from the Technical University of Kaiserslautern (1983) and a Ph.D. degree from the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich (1987). He performed post-doctoral research at TexasA&MUniversity and at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has been a group leader and Assoc. Professor at the Department of Microbiology and Genetics of the University of Vienna.