Skoltech 1st year MSc students Anastasia Chaban and Arina Drobysheva participated in 31st Annual RNA Polymerase Workshop that took place on April, 11-12 in Oxford, UK. The girls presented poster reports: Anastasia presented her work “Function of the P23-45 phage tail tape measure protein containing a catalytic motif of multisubunit RNA polymerases”, while Arina’s poster was entitled as “Transcriptional strategy of the crAss-like phage phi14:2”. Anastasia and Arina were the only participants from Russia. “It was great to meet people who were previously associated only with the lists of authors under the headings of the articles. This conference is probably the most direct and pleasant way to know what studies are carried out in the areas close to our field of interest. It would be great to participate again next year”, says Arina. Anastasia thinks that “It was a great conference, where I listened to the informative talks given by the leading researchers from RNAP field. The atmosphere was comfortable for communication and discussing results.” Both girls work under the supervision of prof. Maria Sokolova.