Son follows in father's footsteps with Nobel win

updated 5:33 p.m. ET Oct. 4, 2006

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - American Roger D. Kornberg, whose father won a Nobel Prize a half-century ago, was awarded the prize in chemistry Wednesday for his studies of how cells take information from genes to produce proteins.

The work is important for medicine, because disturbances in that process are involved in illnesses like cancer, heart disease and various kinds of inflammation. And learning more about the process is key to using stem cells to treat disease.

Kornberg, 59, a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, said medical benefits from his research have taken root.

“There are ... already many therapies, many drugs that are in development in trials or already available and there will be many more,” he said. “Significant benefits to human health are already forthcoming. I think there will be many many more.”

Kornberg’s $1.4 million award, following the Nobels for medicine and physics earlier this week, completes the first American sweep of the Nobel science prizes since 1983.

Americans have won or shared in all the chemistry Nobels since 1992. The last time the chemistry Nobel was given to just one person was in 1999.

Memories of 1959
Kornberg’s father, Arthur, shared the 1959 Nobel medicine prize with Severo Ochoa for studies of how genetic information is transferred from one DNA molecule to another.

Scanpix via Reuters file American Arthur Kornberg, right, is seen receiving the Nobel Prize in medicine from King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden in this photo from Dec. 10, 1959.

The younger Kornberg said he remembered traveling to Stockholm with his father for the Nobel Prize award ceremonies.

“I have always been an admirer of his work and that of many others preceding me. I view them as truly giants of the last 50 years. It’s hard to count myself among them,” he said. “Something so remarkable as this can never be expected even though I was aware of the possibility. I couldn’t conceivably have imagined that it would become reality.”

The Kornbergs are the sixth father and son to both win Nobel Prizes. One father and daughter — Pierre Curie and Irène Joliot-Curie — won Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry, respectively. Marie Curie — Irène’s mother and Pierre’s wife — won two Nobel prizes, for chemistry and physics.

Secrets of transcription
Roger Kornberg’s prize-winning work produced a detailed picture of what scientists call transcription in eukaryotes, the group of organisms that includes humans and other mammals, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in its citation.

Kornberg shed light on how information is taken from genes and converted to molecules called messenger RNA. These molecules shuttle the information to the cells’ protein-making machinery. Proteins, in turn, serve as building blocks and workhorses of cells, vital to structure and functions.

Since 2000, Kornberg has produced actual pictures of messenger RNA molecules being created, a process that resembles building a chain link by link. The images are so detailed that individual atoms can be distinguished.

“In an ingenious manner Kornberg has managed to freeze the construction process of RNA halfway through,” the Nobel committee said. That let him capture the process of transcription in full flow, which is “truly revolutionary,” the committee said.

“Kornberg realized ... that to get to the chemical details of the (process) was fundamental,” said Anders Liljas, a member of the Nobel Committee in Chemistry. “Because if you don’t really see it on a molecular, atomic level, then you don’t really understand it.”

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