Most people are familiar with the nucleic acid molecules DNA and RNA: DNA is known as the carrier of genetic information, whilst RNA has also been recognised for several years as a component of innovative vaccines.

Both nucleic acids can also act like enzymes and, in this role, facilitate biochemical processes. In this context, scientists refer to them as catalytic nucleic acids. Research into these is an emerging discipline within chemistry.

Professor Claudia Höbartner is one of the scientists who has had a significant influence on this field. She holds the Chair of Organic Chemistry I at the University of Würzburg and is a principal investigator of the new Würzburg-Munich Cluster of Excellence NUCLEATE.

The professor has now received another prestigious award for her groundbreaking discoveries: the German Chemical Society (GDCh) honoured her with the Albrecht Kossel Prize.

GDCh President Professor Ruth Bieringer presented the prize, worth 7,500 euros, at the GDCh conference Biochemistry 2026 on 17 March in Würzburg and paid tribute to Claudia Höbartner’s outstanding scientific achievements. In her laudatory speech, Professor Andrea Rentmeister (LMU Munich) painted a vivid picture of the award winner’s scientific passion.

The Würzburg professor was honoured for two groundbreaking discoveries in the field of catalytic nucleic acids.

• She succeeded in determining the structure of a DNAzyme for the first time worldwide. This scientific breakthrough opened up new insights into molecular catalytic mechanisms and unlocked a wide range of potential applications.

• She identified a ribozyme capable of transferring methyl groups. This property is of great significance for research into the origins of life. It also opens up far-reaching prospects for synthetic biology.

Both studies were published in the leading journal Nature and brought international recognition to the field of research.

Claudia Höbartner, born in 1977, completed her degree in Technical Chemistry at the Vienna University of Technology in 2001 and obtained her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Innsbruck in 2004. Postdoctoral research stays took her to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and back to Innsbruck.

From 2008, she headed a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, before taking up a professorship at the University of Göttingen in 2014. She has held the Chair of Organic Chemistry I at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg since 2017.

In 2022, Claudia Höbartner was elected to the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina; in 2023, she received the prestigious Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize and the Bavarian Order of Merit. As a long-standing member of GDCh, she has been a member of the Executive Committee of the GDCh Biochemistry Division since 2023.

The Albrecht Kossel Prize was established in 2012 and awarded for the first time in 2014. It commemorates Ludwig Karl Martin Leonhard Albrecht Kossel (1853–1927), a German biochemist, physician and physiologist. Kossel received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1910 for his work on the study of the cell nucleus and the isolation and structural determination of nucleic acids.

The German Chemical Society (GDCh) is one of the largest chemical societies in the world. It brings together around 28,000 members across 33 specialist divisions.