Roger D. Kornberg

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Roger Kornberg

St. Louis, Missouri
, US
Alma mater
Known forTransmission of genetic information from DNA to RNA
SpouseYahli Lorch
Children3[citation needed]
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsStructural biology
Institutions
ThesisThe Diffusion of Phospholipids in Membranes (1972)
Doctoral advisorHarden M. McConnell[2]
Websitekornberg.stanford.edu
Signature

Roger David Kornberg (born April 24,

transcription."[5][6][7][8][9][10]

Education and early life

Kornberg was born in

Ph.D. in chemical physics from Stanford in 1972 supervised by Harden M. McConnell.[2]

Career

Kornberg became a

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),

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd.

Awards and honors

Kornberg has received the following awards:


See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Roger D. Kornberg". people.embo.org.
  2. ^
    ProQuest 302673759
    .
  3. ^ a b Anon (2009). "Certificate of Election EC/2009/48: Roger D. Kornberg". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 2017-03-21.
  4. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2006". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  5. ^ "Roger Kornberg wins the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry". Stanford University School of Medicine.
  6. ^ "Press release: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2006". Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
  7. PMID 19847957
    .
  8. ^ BBC News report of Kornberg's Nobel Prize win
  9. ^ Kornberg Nobel Prize lecture
  10. ^ The Nobel Foundation 2006 prizes in Chemistry
  11. ^ "Jewish Nobel Prize Winners in Chemistry". www.jinfo.org. Retrieved 2023-03-30.
  12. . Retrieved 8 September 2021.
  13. .
  14. ^ . Retrieved 25 March 2022.
  15. .
  16. .
  17. . Retrieved 8 September 2021.
  18. .
  19. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2006". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  20. S2CID 4993438
    .
  21. .
  22. .
  23. ^ A family story about life 2006
  24. PMID 4332815
    .
  25. . Retrieved 8 September 2021.
  26. .
  27. ^ "The 2005 Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Laureate". Archived from the original on 2006-10-19. Retrieved 2006-10-04.
  28. ^ The Official Site of Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize

External links