V. Narry Kim is a Professor at Seoul National University and a founding director of RNA Research Center at Institute for Basic Science. Kim received her Ph.D. in 1998 from Oxford University on virology, and studied mRNA surveillance as postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania. Her group at SNU has been investigating how microRNAs are made and regulated, and what RNAs and RNA-binding proteins do to control cell fates. Kim received L’Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science (2008) and the Ho-Am Prize in Medicine (2009), and was elected as Foreign Associates of National Academy of Science and of European Molecular Biology Organization.