Prof. Dr. Claudia Höbartner - Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prizewinner 2023
Biological Chemistry, University of Würzburg
Claudia Höbartner has been awarded the Leibniz Prize in recognition of her work in the fields of organic and biomolecular chemistry of functional nucleic acids. With her highly acclaimed publication on the elucidation of the first structure of a DNA enzyme that catalyses a linkage of RNA strands, Höbartner has provided insights into the active centre of the catalyst at the atomic level, thereby making a significant contribution to the chemistry of catalytically active nucleic acids. Her pioneering research is based on a combination of creative strategies to discover new catalytic nucleic acids, so-called ribozymes and deoxyribozymes, combined with the determination of their structures and their functional mechanisms. In addition, Höbartner uses novel chemical methods and elements of chemical biology to synthesise and label modified RNA in order to investigate and visualise the biological functions of RNA as well as natural and artificially produced RNA modifications.
Claudia Höbartner studied technical chemistry at TU Vienna and ETH Zurich. After completing her doctorate in organic chemistry at the University of Innsbruck in 2004, she went to the University of Illinois, USA, as a postdoctoral researcher. in 2008, she became head of a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen before going on to be appointed a W2 professor at Göttingen University in 2014. Höbartner has been Chair of Organic Chemistry at the University of Würzburg since 2017, and in 2016 she also received an ERC Consolidator Grant. In 2022 she was accepted as a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.