Claudia Höbartner

Claudia Höbartner is a Professor at the University of Würzburg in the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy, leading the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Center for Nanosystems Chemistry. Her research focuses on the chemistry of nucleic acids, including ribozymes, deoxyribozymes, RNA modifications, and fluorogenic aptamers.

• Developing catalytic RNA/DNA systems for site-specific RNA labeling and methylation
• Creating high-throughput methods (DZ-seq) for detecting RNA modifications
• Exploring DNAzyme structure-function relationships

Her recent work includes the discovery of methyltransferase ribozymes (Nature, 2020) and SAM-utilizing ribozymes (Nature Chemical Biology, 2025), with applications in antiviral nucleoside engineering and RNA imaging. Awards include mentorship recognition for Martin Volek (Sanofi Award in Pharmacy, 2025).

Current students: Arpan Banerjee and Dominik Rappert. Collaborations span structural biology and chemical biology, with grants supporting RNAmed retreats and PhD programs.