Born 1957 in Essen. Study of medicine, doctorate Heidelberg Univ. (1985), German Habilitation in biochemistry at Munich University (1990), Professor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Cornell Medical College New York (1991- 1997), Associate Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Honorary Professor of the Medical Faculty and the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy of Munich University, Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (since 1997).

Franz-Ulrich Hartl has received several awards for his research, including the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (2001), the Körber Prize for European Science (2006), the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize (2008), the Otto Warburg Medal (2009), the Heineken Prize (2010), and the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (2011). Shaw Prize in Life Sciences and Medicine 2012.