Arthur Kornberg | |
|---|---|
_-_restoration1.jpg) Kornbergc. 1950 | |
| Born | (1918-03-03)March 3, 1918 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | October 26, 2007(2007-10-26) (aged 89) Palo Alto, California, U.S. |
| Education | City College of New York University of Rochester |
| Spouse(s) | Sylvy Ruth Levy (1943–1986; her death; 3 children) Charlene Walsh Levering (1988–1995; her death) Carolyn Frey Dixon (1998–2007; his death)[1] |
| Children | 3 sons with his first wife:Roger David Kornberg,Thomas B. Kornberg, Kenneth Andrew Kornberg |
| Awards | |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Molecular biology |
| Institutions | National Institutes of Health Washington University in St. Louis Stanford University |
| Doctoral students | Randy Schekman James Spudich Tania A. Baker |
Arthur Kornberg (March 3, 1918 – October 26, 2007) was an Americanbiochemist who won theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1959 for the discovery of "the mechanisms in thebiological synthesis ofribonucleic acid anddeoxyribonucleic acid" together with Spanish biochemist and physicianSevero Ochoa ofNew York University. He was also awarded thePaul-Lewis Award in Enzyme Chemistry from theAmerican Chemical Society in 1951, anL.H.D. degree fromYeshiva University in 1962, and theNational Medal of Science in 1979. In 1991, Kornberg received the Golden Plate Award of theAmerican Academy of Achievement[2] and theGairdner Foundation Award in 1995.
Kornberg's primary research interests were inbiochemistry, especiallyenzyme chemistry, deoxyribonucleic acid synthesis (DNA replication) and studying the nucleic acids which control heredity in animals, plants, bacteria and viruses.[3][4]
Born in New York City, Kornberg was the son ofJewish parents Joseph and Lena (née Katz) Kornberg, who emigrated to New York fromAustrian Galicia (now part ofPoland) in 1900 before they were married. His paternal grandfather had changed the family name from Queller (also spelled Kweller) to avoid the draft by taking on the identity of someone who had already completed military service. Joseph married Lena in 1904. Joseph worked as a sewing machine operator in the sweat shops of theLower East Side, Manhattan for almost 30 years, and when his health failed, opened a small hardware store inBrooklyn, where Arthur assisted customers at the age of nine. Joseph spoke at least six languages although he had no formal education.
Arthur Kornberg was educated first atAbraham Lincoln High School[5] and then atCity College of New York. He received a B.S. in 1937, followed by aDoctor of Medicine at theUniversity of Rochester in 1941. Kornberg had a mildly elevated level ofbilirubin in his blood—jaundice due to ahereditary genetic condition known asGilbert's syndrome—and, while at medical school, he took a survey of fellow students to discover how common the condition was. The results were published in Kornberg's first research paper in 1942.[6]
Kornberg's internship was atStrong Memorial Hospital inRochester, New York, in 1941–1942. After completing his medical training, he joined the armed services as a lieutenant in theUnited States Coast Guard, serving as a ship's doctor in 1942 in the Caribbean.Rolla Dyer, the Director ofNational Institutes of Health, had noticed his paper and invited him to join the research team at the Nutrition Laboratory of the NIH. From 1942 to 1945, Kornberg's work was the feeding of specialized diets to rats to discover new vitamins.
The feeding of rats was boring work, and Kornberg became fascinated by enzymes. He transferred toDr Severo Ochoa's laboratory atNew York University in 1946, and took summer courses atColumbia University to fill out the gaps in his knowledge of organic and physical chemistry while learning the techniques of enzyme purification at work. He became Chief of the Enzyme and Metabolism Section at NIH from 1947–1953, working on understanding ofATP production fromNAD andNADP. This led to his work on how DNA is built up from simpler molecules.
While working at NIH, he also researched atWashington University in St. Louis (in the lab ofCarl Ferdinand Cori andGerty Cori in 1947), and theUniversity of California, Berkeley (in the lab ofHorace Barker in 1951).[7]
In 1953 he became professor and head of the department of microbiology, Washington University in St. Louis, until 1959. Here he continued experimenting with the enzymes which created DNA. In 1956 he isolated the first DNA polymerizing enzyme, now known asDNA polymerase I. This got him elected to the United StatesNational Academy of Sciences in 1957 and won him the Nobel prize in 1959.[8][9]
In 1960, he was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Society,[10] received aLL.D. again from City College and aD.Sc. at theUniversity of Rochester in 1962. He became professor and executive head of the department of biochemistry,Stanford University, in 1959. In an interview in 1997, Arthur Kornberg (referring toJosh Lederberg) said: "Lederberg really wanted to join my department. I knew him; he'sa genius, but he'd be unable to focus and to operate within a small family group like ours, and so, I was instrumental in establishing a department of genetics [at Stanford] of which he would be chairman."[11]
Kornberg's mother died of gas gangrene from aspore infection after a routinegall bladder operation in 1939. This started his lifelong fascination with spores, and he devoted some of his research efforts to understanding them while at Washington University. From 1962 to 1970, in the midst of his work on DNA synthesis, Kornberg devoted half his research effort to determining how DNA is stored in the spore, what replication mechanisms are included, and how the spore generates a newcell. This was an unfashionable but complex area of science, and although some progress was made, eventually Kornberg abandoned this research.
The Arthur Kornberg Medical Research Building at theUniversity of Rochester Medical Center was named in his honor in 1999.
Until his death, Kornberg maintained an active research laboratory at Stanford and regularly published scientific journal articles. For several years the focus of his research was the metabolism ofinorganicpolyphosphate.
The "Kornberg school" of biochemistry refers to Arthur Kornberg's many graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, i.e., his intellectual children, and the trainees of his trainees, i.e., his intellectual grandchildren. Kornberg's intellectual children includeI. Robert Lehman,[3] Charles C. Richardson,Randy Schekman,William T. Wickner,James Rothman,Arturo Falaschi andKen-ichi Arai.
On November 21, 1943, Kornberg marriedSylvy Ruth Levy, also a biochemist of note. She worked closely with Kornberg and contributed significantly to the discovery of DNA polymerase. According to their second son, Thomas, “the joke in the family—and it was just a joke—was that when the prize was announced, she said 'I was robbed!’”[12]
Arthur andSylvy Kornberg had three sons:Roger David Kornberg (1947),Thomas B. Kornberg (1948), andKenneth Andrew Kornberg (1950). Roger is Professor of Structural Biology atStanford University, and the 2006 laureate of theNobel Prize in Chemistry. Thomas discoveredDNA polymerase II and III in 1970 and is now a professor at theUniversity of California, San Francisco. 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. Arthur Kornberg remarried in 1988 but his second wife, the former Charlene Walsh Levering, died in 1995. In December 1998 Arthur Kornberg married Carolyn Frey Dixon.
When he was in his eighties, Kornberg continued to conduct research full-time at department of biochemistry at Stanford. He died on October 26, 2007, at Stanford Hospital from respiratory failure.
including the Nobel Lecture on December 11, 1959The Biologic Synthesis of Deoxyribonucleic Acid
