Messenger RNA (mRNA) serves as a blueprint for proteins. When mRNA is no longer needed, it must be degraded. Director Elena Conti and her team at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich have now been able to show that the various molecular machines that translate and degrade mRNA are physically linked to each other and jointly form a supercomplex This supercomplex consists of the ribosome, the SKI complex and the exosome and is part of the cellular quality control machinery.