The Vilcek Foundation has awarded HHMI Investigator Karolin Luger of the University of Colorado, Boulder, the $100,000 Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Scienceexternal link, opens in a new tab for her career-long dedication to the study of nucleosomes. Her pioneering research into these repetitive structures that package DNA inside the nucleus and regulate gene expression has contributed to the development of treatments for diseases such as cancer.  

Presented annually since 2006, the Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Biomedical Science honor immigrants who are leading advancements in biomedical research in the United States. Co-founder Jan Vilcek, whose groundbreaking work led to the development of the lifesaving drug Remicade®, established the prizes to support distinct ingenuity in scientific inquiry. 

An HHMI Investigator since 2005, Luger has devoted her career to studying nucleosomes — repeating structures of DNA wrapped around proteins that make up chromatin, which form chromosomes. As a postdoc, Luger and Timothy Richmond at ETH Zürich captured a high-resolution image of chromatin, revealing the nucleosome structure in atomic detail for the first time.   

The discovery changed how researchers understand the interactions of proteins within the nucleosome, how they are modified, and how this controls gene activity. Many diseases have been found to stem from mutations in the nucleosome, resulting in the development of successful drug treatments, including cancer medicines.  

Luger continues to build on this original discovery in her labexternal link, opens in a new tab, where she and her team seek to understand the impact of chromatin architecture on genome-related processes. She is a member of the National Academy of Science and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and an associate member of EMBO.