Arthur Kornberg


Kornberg, Arthur

 

Born Mar. 3, 1918, in Brooklyn, N.Y. American biochemist.

Kornberg graduated from the City College of New York in 1937 and received his doctor of medicine degree from the University of Rochester in 1941. He worked at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda (1942-53) and Washington University Medical School (1953-59). He is presently head of the department of biochemistry at Stanford University Medical School (since 1959). Kornberg discovered and isolated the enzyme DNA polymerase, which carries out duplication of the DNA molecules during cell division. Using natural DNA as a “seeding” (matrix), he was the first to synthesize active DNA in a test tube. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1959, with S. Ochoa, for the discovery of the biosynthesis mechanism in nucleic acids.

WORKS

Biosynthesis of DNA. University Park, Pa., 1964.
Enzymatic Synthesis of DNA. New York-London, 1961.