Arthur Kornberg
Biochemist who discovered DNA polymerase I.
Arthur Kornberg was an American biochemist who shared the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Severo Ochoa for discovering the mechanisms of biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid. His research centered on enzyme chemistry, DNA replication, and nucleic acids controlling heredity in various organisms. He also received the National Medal of Science in 1979 and the Gairdner Foundation Award in 1995.
Quick Facts
- Born
- 3 March 1918
- Birthplace
- New York City, U.S.
- Died
- 26 October 2007
- Place of death
- Palo Alto, California, U.S.
- Field
- Molecular biology
- Workplaces
- National Institutes of Health
- Washington University in St. Louis
- Stanford University
- Education
- City College of New York; University of Rochester
- Doctoral students
- Randy Schekman
- James Spudich
- Tania A. Baker
Facts from the source article.
Early life and education
His paternal grandfather had changed the family name from Queller to avoid the draft. Joseph worked as a sewing machine operator and later ran a small hardware store, where Arthur helped customers at age nine. Kornberg attended Abraham Lincoln High School and City College of New York, earning a B.S. in 1937, then a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Rochester in 1941. While in medical school, he studied fellow students for Gilbert's syndrome, a hereditary condition causing mild jaundice that he himself had, and published his first research paper on the topic in 1942. He interned at Strong Memorial Hospital in 1941–1942, then served as a ship's doctor in the U.S. Coast Guard in the Caribbean. Noticed by Rolla Dyer, he joined the NIH's Nutrition Laboratory, where from 1942 to 1945 he fed specialized diets to rats to discover new vitamins.
Research and career
Finding rat feeding tedious, Kornberg became interested in enzymes. In 1946 he joined Severo Ochoa's lab at New York University and took summer courses at Columbia University to strengthen his chemistry knowledge while learning enzyme purification. He served as Chief of the Enzyme and Metabolism Section at NIH from 1947 to 1953, studying ATP production from NAD and NADP, which led to work on DNA synthesis. During this period he also researched at Washington University in St. Louis with Carl and Gerty Cori, and at the University of California, Berkeley with Horace Barker. In 1953 he became professor and head of microbiology at Washington University, where in 1956 he isolated the first DNA polymerizing enzyme, DNA polymerase I. This earned him election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1957 and the Nobel Prize in 1959. He moved to Stanford University in 1959 as professor and executive head of biochemistry. His mother's death from gas gangrene after a gall bladder operation in 1939 sparked a lifelong interest in spores; from 1962 to 1970 he devoted half his research to understanding DNA storage and replication in spores, eventually abandoning the unfashionable work. The Arthur Kornberg Medical Research Building at the University of Rochester Medical Center was named for him in 1999.
Personal life
Arthur Kornberg married Sylvy Ruth Levy, a biochemist, on November 21, 1943. She worked closely with him and contributed to the discovery of DNA polymerase; their son Thomas recalled a family joke that when the Nobel was announced, she said 'I was robbed!' They had three sons: Roger David Kornberg (1947), who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2006; Thomas B. Kornberg (1948), who discovered DNA polymerase II and III and became a professor at UCSF; and Kenneth Andrew Kornberg (1950), an architect specializing in biomedical laboratories. Sylvy died in 1986. Kornberg remarried in 1988 to Charlene Walsh Levering, who died in 1995, and in December 1998 married Carolyn Frey Dixon. He continued full-time research into his eighties and died of respiratory failure on October 26, 2007, at Stanford Hospital.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Arthur Kornberg born?
Arthur Kornberg was born on 3 March 1918 in New York City, U.S.
When did Arthur Kornberg die?
Arthur Kornberg died on 26 October 2007 in Palo Alto, California, U.S.
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