The Emperor of Enzymes

Arthur Kornberg was born in New York City on March 3rd, 1918. As a child he assisted his aging father, Joseph Kornberg, in his hardware store in Brooklyn from as early as the age of 9. He was first educated at Abraham Lincoln High School, located in Brooklyn, which was the precursor to his eventual graduation from The City College of New York in 1937 with a bachelors in Science. 

He followed this up by doing another 4 years of schooling at the University of Rochester to receive his Doctor of Medicine in 1941. While attending he noticed he had the hereditary genetic condition known as Gilbert’s syndrome. After this realization he decided to take a survey of his fellow students intending to uncover how common the condition was. The results would be published in his first research paper in 1942.

 This paper was noticed by Rolla Dyer, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, who invited Kornberg to join the research team at the Nutrition Laboratory of the NIH. However, unsatisfied with his position, he transferred to Dr Severo Ochoa’s lab in NYU to pursue his fascination with enzymes. After taking classes to fill in his gaps of knowledge about chemistry, he became Chief of the Enzyme and Metabolism section at the NIH. While working at NIH, he did research at Washington University of St. Louis. It was at this university, in 1956, where Kornberg experimented on the enzymes responsible for producing DNA. Resulting in him isolating the first DNA polymerizing enzyme which won him the Nobel Prize in 1959.

Kornberg’s work is a foundational essential to modern understanding of life as a whole. DNA is necessary for cells to pass information on to new generations. So researching DNA allows us to understand more about how different organisms have their own replication mechanisms.

As previously stated, the hallmark of Kornberg’s research was his paper titled, “Enzymatic Synthesis of Deoxyribonucleic Acid” (October 1955). In his study, Kornberg focused on the enzymatic process responsible for replicating the genetic material, specifically the synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). He discovered and characterized the enzyme DNA polymerase, which plays a central role in DNA replication. DNA polymerase is responsible for catalyzing the addition of nucleotide building blocks to a growing DNA strand during replication. Kornberg’s work also unveiled the role of deoxyribonucleoside triphosphates (dNTPs) as the raw materials for DNA synthesis.

His research laid the foundation for our understanding of DNA replication, and it significantly contributed to the development of techniques such as DNA sequencing and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Kornberg’s work earned him the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1959, and his paper remains a seminal piece of literature in the field of molecular biology, inspiring further studies on DNA replication and repair mechanisms. Personally, I share the same fascination with biological processes as Kornberg does. After doing this research essay, he inspired me to pursue my true passion of working in the medical field, making his work remarkably inspiring. Additionally, his confidence and tenacity to change his path when he no longer enjoyed it also is commendable and something I wish to take from him.