Arthur Kornberg

The pioneering biochemist Arthur Kornberg (1918 - 2007) was awarded the 1959 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering the means by which DNA molecules are duplicated in the bacterial cell -- landmark research that helped advance our understanding of the hereditary process. He was also honored for devising the procedure for reconstructing this duplication process in the test tube. Dr. Kornberg was born in Brooklyn, New York, and educated in the city's public schools. He received his undergraduate degree in science from the City College of New York, and a medical degree from the University of Rochester in 1941. A commissioned officer in the U.S. Public Health Service, he was assigned to the Navy as a ship's doctor during World War II. Following the war, he was posted to the National Institutes of Health, where he organized and directed the program in enzyme research. After leaving NIH, he chaired the department of microbiology at Washington University in St. Louis. In 1959, the same year he received the Nobel Prize, he moved to Stanford University, in Palo Alto, California. At Stanford, he organized the new department of biochemistry, a department he chaired for the following decade. In addition to the Nobel Prize, he is the recipient of many awards, including his nation's highest scientific honor, the National Medal of Science. His autobiography, For the Love of Enzymes: The Odyssey of a Biochemist, was published by Harvard University Press in 1989. Dr. Kornberg addressed the Academy of Achievement at its 1992 gathering in Las Vegas, Nevada. In this podcast, recorded on that occasion, he discusses the challenges and rewards of a life in science. He describes the discipline that the practice of science requires, while sharing his own passionate curiosity about the chemistry of life.