Leibniz Prize for Claudia Höbartner

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09.12.2022 08:09

Leibniz Prize for Claudia Höbartner

Chemistry professor Claudia Höbartner is honored for her outstanding research on nucleic acids DNA and RNA: she receives the prestigious Leibniz Prize endowed with 2.5 million euros.

It is like a very big and early Christmas present that Würzburg chemist Claudia Höbartner can be happy about: the professor will receive one of the prestigious Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz prizes from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), combined with a prize in money of 2.5 million euros. The DFG made the announcement today.

“This is a big surprise that I never expected. I am very happy that our team’s research receives this prestigious award,” says the Head of the I Chair in Organic Chemistry at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) in Bavaria, Germany.

Research at the interface between chemistry and biology

With the Leibniz Prizes, the DFG aims to improve the working conditions of outstanding scientists. Claudia Höbartner (44) will invest the prize money in further research on the biomolecules DNA and RNA – she and her team are leaders in this field at the interface between chemistry and biology. Their work can provide insights that can be used, for example, to fight infectious diseases.

An example: Together with colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen, the JMU researcher deciphered how the antiviral agents Remdesivir and Molnupiravir interfere with the reproduction of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This knowledge may also be invaluable for drug development against other viral pathogens.

Catalytic functions of nucleic acids

Claudia Höbartner’s research focuses on the catalytic functions of the nucleic acids DNA and RNA. The two biomolecules can not only store, transport and regulate genetic information. They are also capable of mediating the course of biochemical reactions such as enzymes. Such RNA enzymes are called ribozymes and can be found in the laboratory by artificial evolution.

The professor made groundbreaking discoveries in this field. Höbartner and his team have developed the first RNA enzyme that makes a very specific change to another RNA molecule and have also recently discovered the chemical mechanism of this new reaction. Furthermore, together with colleagues from Göttingen, he elucidated for the first time the spatial structure of a DNA enzyme down to atomic detail. This work showed that DNA also folds into complex three-dimensional shapes to be catalytically active, just as protein enzymes do.

Successful pursuit attracts young people

With such groundbreaking work, Claudia Höbartner had a decisive influence on her research field. She has found new approaches to specifically modify nucleic acids and has developed innovative methods to study enzymatically active DNA and RNA.

His successful research attracts many young people to Würzburg: Höbartner’s group is currently hosting scientists from eight nations. The professor has already published more than 80 articles in leading chemistry journals, but also in leading interdisciplinary journals such as those of the Nature group. The Leibniz prize money should give this success story further impetus.

Career of the Leibniz Prize winner

Claudia Höbartner, born in 1977 in Krems in Austria, studied Technical Chemistry at the Vienna University of Technology. She completed her dissertation in Switzerland at ETH Zurich, after which she went to the University of Innsbruck to do her doctorate. In 2005 she moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA) as a postdoc.

Höbartner arrived in Germany in 2008: she took over the leadership of a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen. You also worked as a chemistry professor at the university for two years. From Göttingen, she moved to the JMU in July 2017 as head of the Chair for Organic Chemistry I.