Mark Hartmann

Mark Hartmann is a Postdoctoral Researcher and Team Leader at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Germany. His research focuses on rare cancer cell populations that drive disease initiation, progression, relapse, metastasis, and treatment resistance. By integrating single-cell multi-omics technologies with translational cancer research, he aims to better understand cellular states, developmental programmes, and epigenetic mechanisms underlying cancer plasticity.

His work particularly centres on haematological malignancies and circulating tumour cells, with a strong interest in identifying clinically relevant biomarkers and therapeutic vulnerabilities. He has contributed to the development and application of advanced single-cell multi-omics approaches, combining immunophenotypic, genetic, epigenetic, and transcriptomic analyses at single-cell resolution.

In addition to experimental method development in the wet lab, his work includes computational and integrative analysis of multi-dimensional omics datasets to study tumour heterogeneity and rare malignant cell populations. His research bridges fundamental cancer biology with translational and clinically relevant applications in precision oncology.

More recently, his work has contributed to challenging the traditional view of developmental maturation block in paediatric leukaemia by proposing oncofetal reprogramming as a potential oncogenic mechanism underlying childhood cancer. Using integrative multi-omics analyses, his research explores how aberrant reactivation of developmental programmes shapes malignant cell states and creates clinically relevant therapeutic vulnerabilities.