abstract: Recent developments in sequencing and electron microscopy have allowed to study the traffic of ribosomes during translation and the details of their molecular structure. By applying various theoretical, statistical and computational approaches to ribosome profiling data and cryo EM structures, I will show how a sub-compartment of the ribosome -the ribosome exit tunnel- plays key roles in regulating the translation dynamics and other major co-translational processes, e.g. protein folding or antibiotic resistance.