The Luger lab started in January of 1999 with two postdocs, Ernst Schönbrunn and Robert Suto and one graduate student, Cindy White. In addition to establishing a biochemistry lab, our first task was to purchase and implement diffraction equipment and to equip a molecular graphics lab.  X-ray facilities were operational in May of 1999, and we solved our first structure in fall of the same year.

Our program received a kick-start with a grant from the Searle Scholars program, and we were awarded our first NIH grant (which is now in its second cycle) in February of 2000. The lab grew rapidly in size to its ‘steady state’ size of about 10 researchers and 2-4 undergraduates.

In 2002, Drs. Nyborg, Laybourn, Hansen, and Luger were awarded a grant from the W. M. Keck foundation to equip and staff protein purification facilities, and to equip the second port of our existing X-ray generator for data collection.

In 2003, Karolin Luger was named a Monfort Professor, and in 2005 was selected as an Investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.