Mart Saarma is the academy professor and director of the Centre of Excellence in Molecular and Integrated Neuroscience at the Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, Finland. He has studied the structure, biology and therapeutic potential neurotropic factors and their receptors. His recent studies are focused on the role of neurotropic factors in development and neurodegenerative diseases. His group has characterized several new GDNF family receptors and demonstrated that RET receptor tyrosine kinase is the signaling receptor for GDNF. Recently his group has discovered a new neurotrophic factor CDNF and shown that it very efficiently protects and repairs dopamine neurons in vivo. He has received several domestic and international science prizes, including the Nordic Science Prize by Lundbeck Foundation in 2009. He is the member of several academies and EMBO. Currently he is the member of EMBO Council and of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council.