Ivan Dikic, recipient of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in 2013, gave a Leibniz Lecture on "Ubiquitin and Autophagy networks in Health and Disease" at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda (MD, USA) on 23rd October 2019. The Leibniz Prize is the highest honor awarded in German research. Established in 1985, the prize provides an unparalleled degree of freedom to understanding scientists and academics to pursue their research interests. The DFG organizes Leibniz Lectures in different regions across the world in order to promote the prize, the research conducted by the prize holders and the high quality of German science in general.