Arthur Kornberg

Nobel laureate for DNA and RNA discoveries

Biochemist Arthur Kornberg specialized in molecular biology. His primary research interests were in biochemistry, especially enzyme chemistry, deoxyribonucleic acid synthesis (DNA replication) and studying the nucleic acids which control heredity in animals, plants, bacteria and viruses.

He was co-awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1959 for "discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid together with Dr. Severo Ochoa of New York University.


His other awards include the Paul-Lewis Award in Enzyme Chemistry from the American Chemical Society in 1951, L.H.D. degree from Yeshiva University in 1962, and National Medal of Science in 1979.

Brief Family Profile

Arthur Kornberg (New York, March 3, 1918 – Stanford, October 26, 2007), was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 3, 1918,  into a Jewish family. On November 21, 1943, he married Sylvy Ruth Levy, also a biochemist. She worked with him and contributed significantly to the discovery of DNA polymerase. The day after he was awarded, she was quoted in a newspaper as saying "I was robbed."

The couple produced three prominent and successful sons: Roger David (1947), Thomas (1948), and Kenneth Andres (1950). Roger is Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford U, and the 2006 laureate of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Thomas discovered DNA polymerase II and III in 1970 and is now a professor at the University of California. Kenneth is an architect specializing in the design of biomedical and biotechnology laboratories and buildings.

Arthur Kornberg was married three times. His first two wives predeceased him. Sylvy Kornberg died in 1986. He remarried in 1988 but his second wife, the former Charlene W. Levering, died in 1995. In December 1998, he married Carolyn F. Dixon. This time, she survived him.

Kornberg Scientific Work Timeline

1946 - He transferred to Dr. Severo Ochoa's laboratory at New York University, and took summer courses at Columbia University to fill out the gaps in his knowledge of organic and physical chemistry while learning the techniques of enzyme purification at work. After completing his PhD, he was appointed Chief of the Enzyme and Metabolism Section at US National Institute of Health (NIH) in Bethesda. He was responsible for the research about chemical reactions in cells that result in the making of flavins adenine: essential hydrogen, containing intermediaries in biological reductions.

1947–1953 - Worked on nucleoside adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production from NAD co-enzyme found in living cells, and NADF. This led to his work on how DNA is built up from simpler molecules.

1953-1959 - Appointed professor of microbiology at Washington University, St. Louis.

1959 - Co-awarded a Noble Prize for Physiology or Medicine for "discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synethesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid."

1959-1969 - Between these years he was chairman of the department of biochemistry at STanford University in Palo Alto, California.

1961 - Enzymatic Synethesis of DNA, best known book was published, although he also published several other books. 

Legacy of Dr. Arthur Kornberg

The Arthur Kornberg Medical Research Building at the University of Rochester Medical Center was named in his honor in 1999.

The "Kornberg school" of biochemistry refers to Arthur Kornberg's graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, that actually means his intellectual children, and the trainees of his trainees, to mean, his intellectual grandchildren.  Until his death, Kornberg maintained an active research laboratory continuing to conduct research at Stanford's Department of Biochemistry and regularly published peer reviewed scientific journal articles. For several years the focus of his research was the metabolism of inorganic polyphosphate. Dr. Arthur Kornberg died from respiratory failure.


Resources:

"Arthur Kornberg. 3 March 1918 - 26 October 2007" by Lehman, I.R. (2012).  Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. Accessed 3 March 2014.

Kornberg's Nobel Foundation Biography.  NobelPrize.org.  Accessed 3 March 2014.

Image Resource:

Arthur Kornberg.  en.wikipedia.org, public domain.  Accessed 3 March 2014.