Born 1967 Varese, Italy. Study of chemistry, University of Pavia, Italy (1986-1991), graduate studies in biophysics at Imperial College, London/UK (1992-1996), PhD (1996), postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller University, New York/USA, (1997-1999), group leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Heidelberg, Structural and Computational Biology Unit, joint appointment with the Gene Expression Unit, (1999-2005), Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (since January 2006), Honorary Professor, Chemistry and Pharmacology, LMU Munich (2007). In 2008 Conti was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize.