2. The same applies to holidays, during which I completely disconnect from the lab. I have always avoided reading emails on my phone, limited my use of WhatsApp with lab members, and rarely communicate with them outside of working hours.

2. For me, this has never been a significant hurdle.

3. I don’t think there’s a single formula that works for everyone. It tends to evolve naturally (including the fuel $) as the newly established lab begins to take shape.

2. Some might prefer to hear about results from lab members just once every couple of months during seminars (which is not my approach), while others may choose to check in more frequently, depending on the individual and the complexity of the project

3. Don’t let uncertainty about spending your entire life in academia stop you from pursuing one. No one can anticipate every turn ahead.

2. Identifying and pursuing that path takes effort, and there’s no shortcut: hard work is what gets you to good places, including personal satisfaction. I shall add that doing a PhD is an invaluable asset, not only for an academic career but for many other paths as well.

4. it’s important to remember that the success of protein structure prediction rests on more than 75 years of experimental research. The good news is that RNA biophysics still holds vast unexplored territory—where experimental work and AI can advance together, hand in hand.

3. (a term that reflects the need to define RNA by what it doesn’t do) are clearly functional molecules that adopt complex three-dimensional structures to carry out their roles. While AI-based prediction methods will undoubtedly enhance our understanding of RNA structure and function,

2. there was an overreliance on the assumption that structural insights could be obtained mainly through base-pairing predictions—hairpins being one of the few commonly considered structural features. Today, “mysterious” non-coding RNAs

3. I believe this reflects a combination of factors, including scale, national policies, and the challenges of being geographically distant from the mainstream of scientific activity—such as meetings, editorial boards, and grant networks.

2. In particular, the expense of traveling to international scientific meetings. Despite these limitations, Argentina has produced three Nobel laureates in biochemistry and biomedicine—an achievement not only unique in Latin America but also rare in the Southern Hemisphere as a whole.

4. which now shapes my current interest in viral mechanisms, while my drive to understand biology through a biochemical and biophysical lens remains unchanged

3. such as protein folding, intrinsic disorder, protein-nucleic acid and protein-protein recognition, aggregation, and oligomerization. My approach has always been multidisciplinary. All of this has naturally led me into the field of biomolecular condensation,

2. In pursuing this, I have studied aspects that contribute to our understanding of the biochemical mechanisms of two medically relevant model viruses, while simultaneously addressing fundamental questions in protein science

2. I decided to take a course in soil biochemistry at a research institute, where I first learned what pursuing a PhD was really about.

2. only to discover toward the end that I was not drawn to biochemical practice either, but rather to understanding the fundamental principles of biology through biochemistry.