From a young age, Karolin Luger has been fascinated by the “invisible” ways the world works. Today, she is tackling questions on an atomic level to cure diseases like cancer. Luger studies the function and structure of genomes to understand how defects form inside them. Though similar research stumped scientists for decades, Luger’s findings have led to breakthroughs in the development of groundbreaking treatments.

Considered nontraditional, Luger’s eager adoption of cross-cultural and equitable practices in her research has led to these prodigious discoveries. When it comes to women and other underrepresented communities in science, she believes diversity isn’t optional, but rather the key to transformative success.  

“Science has always been very international, which to me is one of the big attractions of this job,” says Luger. “To have smart people with very diverse backgrounds and life stories join with a razor-sharp focus to ask and answer important fundamental questions is the best way to make progress.”

Hooked on the Unknown

Growing up in Austria, Luger showed a keen interest in biology at a young age. She loved gardening; she found the process of planting seeds and watching them grow enthralling. But no one could quite explain exactly how those tiny seeds became plants. Determined to find answers, Luger acquired a microscope when she was just 10 years old and fully immersed herself in a previously hidden world. 

When she later began her studies at the University of Innsbruck, Luger enrolled in immunology courses, but was immediately drawn to structural biology where she became an X-ray crystallographer. Eventually, she joined the “resolution revolution” in cryogenic electron microscopy (cryoEM) that creates atomic or near-atomic resolution images of biological molecules. 

Luger notes that there weren’t many women in the biological sciences during this time and she found it difficult to be taken seriously, particularly in Europe. After she immigrated to the United States in 1990, she noticed an improvement in the way she was treated, and it reinforced her commitment to engender equity across gender, ability, race, class, or experience. 

Her collaborative approach led to a landmark paper: In 1997, after eight years of work, Luger and her colleague Tim Richmond obtained a high-resolution crystal structure of chromatin, the complex structure of DNA, protein, and nucleosomes inside a cell’s nucleus. 

This image transformed the way researchers study genomes’ behavior, influencing several studies on how proteins interact with the nucleosome, how they’re modified, and how this behavior controls gene activity or DNA replication. To this day, it is still the most-cited structure in the protein database. 

“Many diseases have since been found to stem from mutations in the nucleosome and its ‘maintenance machinery,’ and this knowledge resulted in the development of innovative drugs to treat disease,” Luger says. “Like many others, my lab has built on this original discovery and we continue to be surprised by the elegant and complicated ways in which DNA access is regulated by nucleosomes.”

Building Community for Better Outcomes

Today, Luger is still working to help others, both on the microscopic scale and in her laboratory. Though many have encouraged her to put all of her efforts into her own research, Luger instead focuses on creating an environment built on communal support. She is the first to offer help to a colleague applying for a grant and likes to encourage her students to gain experience through teaching or other nontraditional avenues like scientific journalism. 

“Everybody has a different way to approach a problem,” Luger says. “We can’t press everybody through the same mold, because what we will get in the end is uniformity rather than diversity. Rather, we have to enable alternative and unconventional career paths and be supportive of our young colleagues in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.”