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Pioneering biochemists��Natalie Ahn and Karolin Luger have been inducted into the��, an honor that recognizes��"distinguished and continuing achievements in original research." Membership in the prestigious organization is widely considered to be one of the highest honors that��a scientist can receive.

"It's really a wonderful recognition of our work��and a great honor that I share with all of my coworkers, past and present," said Luger, a professor in the��Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry��and��the��Jennie Smoly Caruthers Endowed Chair of Biochemistry.

Luger and her colleagues study��how genetic material is stored in human cells��and how these organizational principles critically affect every aspect of cell life��in health and disease. Understanding and visualizing protein-DNA assemblies at atomic resolution will allow researchers��to better understand how the genome is decoded by the cell’s machinery.

In 2017, Luger—who is also a����(HHMI) Investigator—��on the genomic structure of microbes called Archaea, findings that hinted at the evolutionary origins of DNA folding that all multicellular organisms use.��The research built on Luger's cornerstone scientific achievement, which outlined the��three-dimensional structure of the nucleosome. That finding, now widely cited in textbooks,��was named the��“breakthrough of the year” in 1997 by the journal��Science.

Ahn joined the ��ƷSM����ӰƬ faculty in��1992 and served as an��HHMI Investigator from 1994–2014.��She serves as President of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.��

“This is such a great honor," said Ahn, a Professor of Distinction in Chemistry and Biochemistry and Associate Director of the��BioFrontiers Institute. "I owe many thanks to my past mentors, and to my wonderful colleagues, students and friends in our amazing ��ƷSM����ӰƬ community.”

Ahn's research focuses on��enzymatic and cellular mechanisms underlying cell signal transduction.��She conducted pioneering work in the discovery of the mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase cascade, including the identification of MAP kinase kinases which are important targets for anti-cancer therapies. She was also a pioneer in the use of functional proteomics and mass spectrometry for signal transduction research.

The 2018 class of National Academy of Sciences inductees includes��84 researchers from across the country as well as��21��foreign associates.��The new inductees bring the total number of��active members to 2,382 and the total number of foreign associates to 484.