Ralf Bartenschlager


Ralf F. W. Bartenschlager is a German virologist who has been researching hepatitis C since 1989. He is a professor in the Department of Infectious Diseases at the Heidelberg University.

Early life

Bartenschlager grew up in Mannheim. After high school, he worked as a policemen for four years before starting his undergraduate in biology in 1981 at Heidelberg University. He conduced his thesis work with Heinz Schaller at the ZMBH in Heidelberg on the structure and functional role of the P-protein in Hepatitis B viruses. After graduating in 1990, he continued working as a postdoc at Heidelberg University until joining Hoffmann-La Roche in 1991, where he began working on Hepatitis C.
He was a recipient of the 2016 Lasker Award for Clinical Research for discoveries related to hepatitis C virus, jointly with Charles M. Rice and Michael J. Sofia.