  The status of the ALICE experiment is presented. ALICE is the LHC experiment
devoted to heavy ion collisions. Preparing for the first lead-lead run,
foreseen in November 2010, ALICE is successfully collecting data in
proton-proton collisions at the LHC since November 2009, exploiting the
charateristics of the detector for its proton-proton physics program. First
results are briefly reviewed with an emphasis on performance of its detector
sub-systems.
