Arthur Kornberg dies

Arthur Kornberg, 89, the legendary biochemist who won the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for illuminating how DNA is assembled, died on Friday (October 26) of respiratory failure.

"There have got to be tens of thousands of people around the world today whose eyes are tearing up with the news that he's gone," Paul Berg, one of Kornberg's colleagues at Stanford (and winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work with recombinant DNA), said in a statement. "He was an extraordinary scientist. His accomplishments might be called legendary."

Kornberg was born in Brooklyn in 1918, and earned an MD from the University of Rochester in 1941. He joined the US Public Health Service, then accepted a post at the National Institutes of Health, where he stayed until 1953. While there, he completed a sabbatical at New York University School of Medicine, where he worked with his co-laureate, Severo Ochoa.

Kornberg was the first to synthesize DNA in a test tube. He also discovered the enzymes that assemble DNA, including an enzyme Kornberg himself dubbed "DNA polymerase." His work triggered subsequent developments in recombinant DNA and genetic engineering, as well as new therapies.

Three of his publications have been cited over 1,000 times, including a 1948 publication in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

In 1959, Arthur Kornberg joined Stanford as the chair of its new department of biochemistry, in the middle of the school's move from San Francisco to Palo Alto. His colleague, Robert Baldwin, said in a statement that one of the "surprising features" of the new department was that everybody shared general laboratory space. "Students and postdocs from the various research groups were mixed together in common laboratories, and research grants were also shared."

Kornberg "helped establish the field of biochemistry and enzymology, trained many of its leaders and fostered the accomplishments of many scientists -- many who have gone on to remarkable careers in their own rights," Philip Pizzo, dean of the Stanford School of Medicine, said in a statement.

"I used to joke and say that [Kornberg] could make anybody do something and make them think that they had come up with the idea of doing it," Berg added. "He had this wonderful touch, being interested, warm, calling you in the middle of the night to find out if your experiment worked."

Kornberg accepted emeritus status in 1988, but continued to run a lab until he was hospitalized. In the 1990s, he shifted his focus to inorganic phosphate, which he called poly P. He found that this ubiquitous molecule increased virulence for many deadly bacteria, including Salmonella and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The human version of poly P is different from the bacterial version, so Kornberg argued that targeting the bacterial enzyme that builds poly P could kill pathogens but leave human molecules unharmed.

Kornberg used to bring his children to the lab on weekends. His son, Roger Kornberg, accompanied his father to the Nobel Prize ceremony at age 12, then studied the enzymes responsible for RNA at Stanford. Nearly fifty years later, the Kornbergs returned to Stockholm when Roger was honored with the 2006 Chemistry Nobel. He is survived by his wife, two other sons Thomas and Kenneth, and eight grandchildren.

"I feel lucky indeed to have been in the Stanford Biochemistry Department, founded by Arthur Kornberg, when the new science of molecular biology was getting into gear," said Baldwin.

Alison McCook
mail@the-scientist.com


Links within this article:

A. Kornberg, "Biochemist Arthur Kornberg: A lifelong love affair with enzymes," The Scientist, September 4, 1989.
http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/9523/

Arthur Kornberg, slide show
http://med.stanford.edu/special_topics/2007/kornberg/slideshow/

Nobel Prize, Arthur Kornberg
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1959/kornberg-bio.html

Paul Berg
http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/

A. Kornberg, "We must try to bridge the gap between biological and chemical sciences," The Scientist, July 25, 1988.
http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/8598/

B.L. Horecker and A. Kornberg, "The extinction coefficients of the reduced band of pyridine nucleotides," Journal of Biological Chemistry, 1948.
http://www.jbc.org/cgi/reprint/175/1/385.pdf

Robert Baldwin
http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/

J. Yajnik, "Kornberg wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry," The Scientist, October 4, 2006.
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/25009/