Arthur Kornberg

On November 21, 1943, Kornberg married Sylvy Ruth Levy. She was also a noted biochemist and worked closely with him in the discovery of DNA Polymerase I. Unfortunately, she did not get any recognition for her contribution. She died in 1986, survived by Kornberg and their three sons.

Their eldest son, Roger David Kornberg is a Professor of Structural Biology at the University of Stanford and a Nobel Laureate. In 2006, he received the Nobel Prize for discovering how genetic information from DNA is copied to RNA.

Their second son, Thomas B. Kornberg, is a professor at the University of California, San Francisco and noted for his discovery of DNA polymerase II and III (1970). Their youngest son, Kenneth Andrew Kornberg, is an architect specializing in the design of biomedical and biotechnology laboratories.

Arthur Kornberg was born on March 3, 1918 in Brooklyn, New York City. His parents, Joseph and Lena (née Katz) Kornberg, were Jewish emigrants from Austrian Galicia, now part of Poland.

Arthur's father, Joseph Kornberg, did not have any formal education, but could speak at least six languages. In New York, he operated a sweet shop, but later as his health failed, he opened a hardware store. When Arthur turned nine, he began to lend a helping hand at the store.

An exceptionally bright student from the start, Arthur studied at Abraham Lincoln High School at Brooklyn, graduating from there in 1933. Upon receiving a scholarship he next enrolled in premedical course at City College, New York with biology and chemistry as his major.

He received his B. Sc. degree in 1937. He then joined University of Rochester Medical Center for his medical degree and received his MD in 1941. Here he began to develop interest in medical research.

Kornberg suffered from a hereditary genetic condition called Gilbert syndrome and his blood contained a slightly higher level of bilirubin. It made him susceptible to jaundice. While studying at the medical school, he began to take survey of his fellow students, trying to establish how common the syndrome was.

Upon receiving his medical degree in 1941, Kornberg entered Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester for his internship, and completed the same in 1942. Subsequently, he joined the United States Coast Guard as a Lieutenant, serving as a ship's doctor, as part of his military service.

In 1942, he published the result of his above mentioned survey. Titled, ‘The Occurrence of Jaundice in an Otherwise Normal Medical Student’, it caught the attention of Rolla Dyer, the Director of National Institute of Health, who invited him to join his research team at the Nutritional Laboratory.

Kornberg took up this opportunity and joined National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Here he was assigned to the Nutrition Section of its Physiology Division. His job was to look for new vitamins by feeding rats with specialized diet. He did not find that motivating.

Instead, he developed interest in enzymes. In 1946, he got himself transferred to Dr Severo Ochoa's laboratory at New York University to learn more about enzyme purification techniques. Concurrently, he took summer courses at Columbia University to update his knowledge about organic and physical chemistry.

Next in 1947, Kornberg shifted to Washington University School of Medicine at St. Louis. Here he worked for few months with Carl Ferdinand Cori before returning to NIH at Bethesda.

Kornberg is best remembered for his work on deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) polymerase. In 1956, he identified DNA Polymerase I (or Pol I) in the intestinal bacterium E coli and recognized it as an essential enzyme for replication, repair and rearrangements of DNA.

He also showed how a single strand of DNA formed new strands of nucleotides and proved that DNA had a double helix structure, as theorized by earlier scientists. This discovery helped to start a biotechnology revolution, which had far reaching consequences.

Synthesis of artificial DNA, which was at the same time biologically active, was another of Kornberg’s major projects. The work not only helped in future studies of genetics, but also helped to provide cures to hereditary diseases and control viral infections.