Roger David Kornberg (born April 24,[4] 1947) is an American biochemist and professor of structural biology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Kornberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2006 for his studies of the process by which genetic information from DNA is copied to RNA, "the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription."[5][6][7][8][9][10]
Education and early life
Kornberg was born in St. Louis, Missouri, into a Jewish family,[11] the eldest son of biochemist Arthur Kornberg, who won the Nobel Prize, and Sylvy Ruth (Levy) who was also a biochemist. He earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Harvard University in 1967 and his Ph.D. in chemical physics from Stanford in 1972 supervised by Harden M. McConnell.[2]
Career
Kornberg became a postdoctoral research fellow at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England and then an Assistant Professor of Biological Chemistry at Harvard Medical School in 1976, before moving to his present position as Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford Medical School in 1978.[12] Since 2004, Kornberg has been the editor of the Annual Review of Biochemistry.[13]
Research
Kornberg in 2006
Roger D. Kornberg (third from left) with Andrew Fire, George Smoot, Dick Cheney, Craig Mello and John C. Mather
Kornberg identified the role of RNA polymerase II and other proteins in DNA transcription, creating three-dimensional images of the protein cluster using X-ray crystallography.[14]
Kornberg and his research group have made several fundamental discoveries concerning the mechanisms and regulation of eukaryotic transcription. While a graduate student working with Harden McConnell at Stanford in the late 1960s, he discovered the "flip-flop" and lateral diffusion of phospholipids in bilayer membranes. Meanwhile, as a postdoctoral fellow working with Aaron Klug and Francis Crick at the MRC in the 1970s, Kornberg discovered the nucleosome as the basic protein complex packaging chromosomal DNA in the nucleus of eukaryotic cells (chromosomal DNA is often termed "chromatin" when it is bound to proteins in this manner).[15] Within the nucleosome, Kornberg found that roughly 200 bp of DNA are wrapped around an octamer of histone proteins. With Yahli Lorch, Kornberg showed that a nucleosome on a promoter prevents the initiation of transcription, leading to the recognition of a functional role for the nucleosome, which serves as a general gene repressor.[16]
Kornberg's research group at Stanford later succeeded in the development of a faithful transcription system from baker's yeast, a simple unicellular eukaryote, which they then used to isolate in a purified form all of the several dozen proteins required for the transcription process. Through the work of Kornberg and others, it has become clear that these protein components are remarkably conserved across the full spectrum of eukaryotes, from yeast to human cells.[17]
Using this system, Kornberg made the major discovery that transmission of gene regulatory signals to the RNA polymerase machinery is accomplished by an additional protein complex that they dubbed Mediator.[18] As noted by the Nobel Prize committee, "the great complexity of eukaryotic organisms is actually enabled by the fine interplay between tissue-specific substances, enhancers in the DNA and Mediator. The discovery of Mediator is therefore a true milestone in the understanding of the transcription process."[19]
At the same time as Kornberg was pursuing these biochemical studies of the transcription process, he devoted two decades to the development of methods to visualize the atomic structure of RNA polymerase and its associated protein components.[14] Initially, Kornberg took advantage of expertise with lipid membranes gained from his graduate studies to devise a technique for the formation of two-dimensional protein crystals on lipid bilayers. These 2D crystals could then be analyzed using electron microscopy to derive low-resolution images of the protein's structure. Eventually, Kornberg was able to use X-ray crystallography to solve the 3-dimensional structure of RNA polymerase at atomic resolution.[20][21] He has recently extended these studies to obtain structural images of RNA polymerase associated with accessory proteins.[22] Through these studies, Kornberg has created an actual picture of how transcription works at a molecular level. According to the Nobel Prize committee, "the truly revolutionary aspect of the picture Kornberg has created is that it captures the process of transcription in full flow. What we see is an RNA-strand being constructed, and hence the exact positions of the DNA, polymerase and RNA during this process."[23]
Lipids membrane
As a graduate student at Stanford University, Kornberg's studied the rotation of phospholipids and defined for the first time the dynamics of lipids in the membrane.[24] Kornberg called the movement of lipid from one leaflet to the other flip-flop because he had studied only a few years before electronic circuit elements called flip-flops. The term gave rise to the naming of proteins called flippases and floppases.[25]
Industrial collaborations
Kornberg has served on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the following companies: Cocrystal Discovery, Inc (Chairman), ChromaDex Corporation (Chairman), StemRad, Ltd, Oplon Ltd (Chairman), and Pacific Biosciences. Kornberg has also been a director for the following companies: OphthaliX Inc., Protalix BioTherapeutics, Can-Fite BioPharma, Ltd, Simploud and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd.
Awards and honors
Kornberg has received the following awards:
1981: Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry
1982: Passano Award from the Passano Foundation
1990: Ciba-Drew Award
1997: Harvey Prize from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
2000: Gairdner Foundation International Award
2001: Hoppe-Seyler Award, Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Germany[26]
2001: Welch Award in Chemistry
2002: ASBMB-Merck Award[citation needed]
2002: Pasarow Award in Cancer Research
2002: Grand Prix Charles-Leopold Mayer
2003: Elected to EMBO Membership [1]
2003: Massry Prize from the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California
2005: General Motors Cancer Research Foundation’s Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Prize[27]
2006: Dickson Prize from University of Pittsburgh
2006: Nobel Prize in Chemistry
2006: Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University[28]
2008: American Philosophical Society Membership
2009: Elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS)[3]
See also
List of Jewish Nobel laureates
References
"Roger D. Kornberg". people.embo.org.
Kornberg, Roger David (1972). The Diffusion of Phospholipids in Membranes (PhD thesis). Stanford University. OCLC 38611465. ProQuest 302673759.
Anon (2009). "Certificate of Election EC/2009/48: Roger D. Kornberg". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 2017-03-21.
"The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2006". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
"Roger Kornberg wins the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry". Stanford University School of Medicine.
"Press release: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2006". Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
N, Kresge; Al., Et (2009). "The Decade-long Pursuit of a Reconstituted Yeast Transcription System: the Work of Roger D. Kornberg". J Biol Chem. 284 (43): e18-20. doi:10.1016/S0021-9258(20)38209-0. PMC 2785628. PMID 19847957.
BBC News report of Kornberg's Nobel Prize win
Kornberg Nobel Prize lecture
The Nobel Foundation 2006 prizes in Chemistry
"Jewish Nobel Prize Winners in Chemistry". www.jinfo.org. Retrieved 2023-03-30.
Vasmatkar, Pashupat; Kamaljit, Kaur (2019). Miracles in Biochemistry: The contribution of the Nobel laureates to the field of Biochemistry. India: Educreation Publishing. p. 99. ISBN 978-9388910743. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
Richardson, Charles C. (2 June 2015). "It Seems Like Only Yesterday". Annual Review of Biochemistry. 84 (1): 1–34. doi:10.1146/annurev-biochem-060614-033850. PMID 26034887.
Stoddart, Charlotte (1 March 2022). "Structural biology: How proteins got their close-up". Knowable Magazine. doi:10.1146/knowable-022822-1. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
Kornberg, R. D. (1974). "Chromatin Structure: A Repeating Unit of Histones and DNA". Science. 184 (4139): 868–871. Bibcode:1974Sci...184..868K. doi:10.1126/science.184.4139.868. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 4825889.
Lorch, Yahli; LaPointe, Janice W.; Kornberg, Roger D. (1987). "Nucleosomes inhibit the initiation of transcription but allow chain elongation with the displacement of histones". Cell. 49 (7): 203–210. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(87)90561-7. PMID 3568125. S2CID 21270171.
Capa, Nossa (2001). "Our Journal Cover". Jornal Brasileiro de Patologia e Medicina Laboratorial. 37 (4): 231. doi:10.1590/S1676-24442001000400001. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
Kelleher, Raymond J.; Flanagan, Peter M.; Kornberg, Roger D. (1990). "A novel mediator between activator proteins and the RNA polymerase II transcription apparatus". Cell. 61 (7): 1209–1215. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(90)90685-8. ISSN 0092-8674. PMID 2163759. S2CID 4971987.
"The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2006". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
Cramer, P. (2001). "Structural Basis of Transcription: RNA Polymerase II at 2.8 Angstrom Resolution" (PDF). Science. 292 (5523): 1863–1876. Bibcode:2001Sci...292.1863C. doi:10.1126/science.1059493. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0015-8729-F. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 11313498. S2CID 4993438.
Gnatt, A. L. (2001). "Structural Basis of Transcription: An RNA Polymerase II Elongation Complex at 3.3 A Resolution". Science. 292 (5523): 1876–1882. Bibcode:2001Sci...292.1876G. doi:10.1126/science.1059495. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0015-8723-C. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 11313499. S2CID 12379905.
Bushnell, D. A. (2004). "Structural Basis of Transcription: An RNA Polymerase II-TFIIB Cocrystal at 4.5 Angstroms". Science. 303 (5660): 983–988. Bibcode:2004Sci...303..983B. doi:10.1126/science.1090838. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 14963322. S2CID 36598301.
A family story about life 2006
Kornberg, RD; McConnell, HM (October 1971). "Lateral diffusion of phospholipids in a vesicle membrane". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 68 (10): 2564–8. Bibcode:1971PNAS...68.2564K. doi:10.1073/pnas.68.10.2564. PMC 389469. PMID 4332815.
Epand, Richard M.; Ruysschaert, Jean-Marie (September 25, 2017). The biophysics of cell membranes : biological consequences. Singapore: Springer. pp. 33–34. ISBN 9789811062438. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
Hartl, Franz-Ulrich (2001). "Roger D. Kornberg Felix Hoppe-Seyler Lecturer 2001". Biological Chemistry. 382 (8): 1101–2. doi:10.1515/BC.2001.139. ISSN 1431-6730. PMID 11592389. S2CID 41857405.
"The 2005 Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Laureate". Archived from the original on 2006-10-19. Retrieved 2006-10-04.
The Official Site of Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize
External links
Scholia has an author profile for Roger D. Kornberg.
Roger D. Kornberg on Nobelprize.org Edit this at Wikidata
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Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
1901–1925
1901: Jacobus van 't Hoff 1902: Emil Fischer 1903: Svante Arrhenius 1904: William Ramsay 1905: Adolf von Baeyer 1906: Henri Moissan 1907: Eduard Buchner 1908: Ernest Rutherford 1909: Wilhelm Ostwald 1910: Otto Wallach 1911: Marie Curie 1912: Victor Grignard / Paul Sabatier 1913: Alfred Werner 1914: Theodore Richards 1915: Richard Willstätter 1916 1917 1918: Fritz Haber 1919 1920: Walther Nernst 1921: Frederick Soddy 1922: Francis Aston 1923: Fritz Pregl 1924 1925: Richard Zsigmondy
1926–1950
1926: Theodor Svedberg 1927: Heinrich Wieland 1928: Adolf Windaus 1929: Arthur Harden / Hans von Euler-Chelpin 1930: Hans Fischer 1931: Carl Bosch / Friedrich Bergius 1932: Irving Langmuir 1933 1934: Harold Urey 1935: Frédéric Joliot-Curie / Irène Joliot-Curie 1936: Peter Debye 1937: Norman Haworth / Paul Karrer 1938: Richard Kuhn 1939: Adolf Butenandt / Leopold Ružička 1940 1941 1942 1943: George de Hevesy 1944: Otto Hahn 1945: Artturi Virtanen 1946: James B. Sumner / John Northrop / Wendell Meredith Stanley 1947: Robert Robinson 1948: Arne Tiselius 1949: William Giauque 1950: Otto Diels / Kurt Alder
1951–1975
1951: Edwin McMillan / Glenn T. Seaborg 1952: Archer Martin / Richard Synge 1953: Hermann Staudinger 1954: Linus Pauling 1955: Vincent du Vigneaud 1956: Cyril Hinshelwood / Nikolay Semyonov 1957: Alexander Todd 1958: Frederick Sanger 1959: Jaroslav Heyrovský 1960: Willard Libby 1961: Melvin Calvin 1962: Max Perutz / John Kendrew 1963: Karl Ziegler / Giulio Natta 1964: Dorothy Hodgkin 1965: Robert Woodward 1966: Robert S. Mulliken 1967: Manfred Eigen / Ronald Norrish / George Porter 1968: Lars Onsager 1969: Derek Barton / Odd Hassel 1970: Luis Federico Leloir 1971: Gerhard Herzberg 1972: Christian B. Anfinsen / Stanford Moore / William Stein 1973: Ernst Otto Fischer / Geoffrey Wilkinson 1974: Paul Flory 1975: John Cornforth / Vladimir Prelog
1976–2000
1976: William Lipscomb 1977: Ilya Prigogine 1978: Peter D. Mitchell 1979: Herbert C. Brown / Georg Wittig 1980: Paul Berg / Walter Gilbert / Frederick Sanger 1981: Kenichi Fukui / Roald Hoffmann 1982: Aaron Klug 1983: Henry Taube 1984: Robert Merrifield 1985: Herbert A. Hauptman / Jerome Karle 1986: Dudley R. Herschbach / Yuan T. Lee / John Polanyi 1987: Donald J. Cram / Jean-Marie Lehn / Charles J. Pedersen 1988: Johann Deisenhofer / Robert Huber / Hartmut Michel 1989: Sidney Altman / Thomas Cech 1990: Elias Corey 1991: Richard R. Ernst 1992: Rudolph A. Marcus 1993: Kary Mullis / Michael Smith 1994: George Olah 1995: Paul J. Crutzen / Mario Molina / F. Sherwood Rowland 1996: Robert Curl / Harold Kroto / Richard Smalley 1997: Paul D. Boyer / John E. Walker / Jens Christian Skou 1998: Walter Kohn / John Pople 1999: Ahmed Zewail 2000: Alan J. Heeger / Alan MacDiarmid / Hideki Shirakawa
2001–present
2001: William Knowles / Ryoji Noyori / K. Barry Sharpless 2002: John B. Fenn / Koichi Tanaka / Kurt Wüthrich 2003: Peter Agre / Roderick MacKinnon 2004: Aaron Ciechanover / Avram Hershko / Irwin Rose 2005: Robert H. Grubbs / Richard R. Schrock / Yves Chauvin 2006: Roger D. Kornberg 2007: Gerhard Ertl 2008: Osamu Shimomura / Martin Chalfie / Roger Y. Tsien 2009: Venkatraman Ramakrishnan / Thomas A. Steitz / Ada E. Yonath 2010: Richard F. Heck / Akira Suzuki / Ei-ichi Negishi 2011: Dan Shechtman 2012: Robert Lefkowitz / Brian Kobilka 2013: Martin Karplus / Michael Levitt / Arieh Warshel 2014: Eric Betzig / Stefan Hell / William E. Moerner 2015: Tomas Lindahl / Paul L. Modrich / Aziz Sancar 2016: Jean-Pierre Sauvage / Fraser Stoddart / Ben Feringa 2017: Jacques Dubochet / Joachim Frank / Richard Henderson 2018: Frances Arnold / Gregory Winter / George Smith 2019: John B. Goodenough / M. Stanley Whittingham / Akira Yoshino 2020: Emmanuelle Charpentier / Jennifer Doudna 2021: David MacMillan / Benjamin List 2022: Carolyn R. Bertozzi / Morten P. Meldal / Karl Barry Sharpless 2023: Moungi G. Bawendi / Louis E. Brus / Alexei I. Ekimov
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