Gunther Hartman

Prof Hartmann’s research focus has been nucleic acid sensing in the broader context of nucleic acid immunity, and Hartmann has made fundamental contributions to ligand characterization and immunobiology. In their recent work, Hartmann and his group have discovered a pivotal mechanism by which RIG-I discriminates between foreign and self RNA, characterized the role of NLRP3 in NK-cell memory, discovered cyclic [G(2’,5’)pA(3’,5’)p] (cGAMP), the metazoan second messenger in the cGAS- STING pathway, and identified Y-form DNA as a minimal ligand for cGAS which is crucial for early HIV detection.