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Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prize in genetics chemistry was won today by Roger Kornberg for his work on DNA transcription. His father, Arthur Kornberg, also won a Nobel prize for his work in genetics.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on October 4, 2006 at 07:41 AM in Current Affairs, Science | Permalink
Comments
His father, Arthur Kornberg, also won a Nobel prize for his work in genetics.
I guess good genetics runs in the family.
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at Oct 4, 2006 1:06:33 PM
I LOLed.
Posted by: Jacqueline at Oct 4, 2006 1:21:07 PM
Funny, but the Nobel committee was pretty clear in saying that the crystallographic work by Kornberg, which is far more chemical, was instrumental in the prize.
Posted by: Joey at Oct 4, 2006 3:08:27 PM
What previous geneticist also won a Nobel and is in the National Wrestling Hall of fame to boot? When I asked some 300 hikers on the trails above Estes Park, what living American won the Nobel for saving over a billion lives...many said Salk. Only one knew it was Borlaug. Eventually my hiking partners told me to cut it out.
I wonder what his kids are up to.
Posted by: Dave Meleney at Oct 4, 2006 5:29:58 PM
Has anyone read a good description of what it is about RNA transcription that he discovered? I read some things, and the press release, and it is unclear how this work is new. There's a minor comment on how his pictures show "atoms", but what does this mean?
If it's the crystallographic technique that's new, what about it, specifically? Because X ray crystallography certainly wouldn't show atoms, but I can't find a better description.
Posted by: anonymous at Oct 4, 2006 10:34:50 PM
X-ray crystallography definitely does show atoms, but that technique wasn't what the prize was given for in this case. Kornberg and his group have been intensively studying the RNA polymerase enzyme, trying to find out how it manages to bind to DNA, recruit individual nucleic acids, and assemble them into messenger RNA so well and so quickly. The X-ray work has been very helpful in getting "snapshots" of the enzyme at work, and it's been oneof the more impressive crystallographic accomplishments of recent years, but it's been in the service of understanding how the key enzyme of genetic code-reading works, on a molecular level.
Posted by: Derek Lowe at Oct 5, 2006 9:14:44 AM
could I have a source for those claims? a paper? something? And why is this X ray crystallography impressive, precisely?
again, a source?
Posted by: anonymous at Oct 5, 2006 12:28:33 PM
let's put it this way: x ray crystallography was done by Rosemary Franklin in the 50s to show the structure of DNA.
how is this X ray crystallography different? (and if you go in a circle and tell me that ti shows atoms, I'm giving up.)
Posted by: anonymous at Oct 5, 2006 12:32:01 PM
Here's a source on the uses of X-ray crystallography to determine the positions of atoms within large protein molecules:
http://www.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/BBS/whatis/cryst_an.html
A more detailed discussion is here:
http://www-structmed.cimr.cam.ac.uk/Course/Overview/Overview.html
As for Kornberg's prize, remember, he's not getting it just for managing to acquire a high-resolution X-ray structure. Many other proteins have been solved at the same level of detail. He's being recognized for doing it to RNA polymerase, and using that data to work out how RNAPol does what it does. Here's a discussion of the enzyme and of the Kornberg lab's role in studying it:
http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/research/highlights_archive/rna_polymerase.html
Again, don't confuse the tool with the discovery. Think about this year's Physics prize as an analogy: satellites have been launched before, and radio astronomy has been done before. But the use of satellite-based radio astronomy to provide the strongest-ever confirmation of the Big Bang and set off new areas of work in cosmology - that's worth a Nobel.
Posted by: Derek Lowe at Oct 5, 2006 1:44:37 PM
Great, congrats Mr Kornberg Jr. So you inherited some good
genes from your dad indeed!!!
But I was just wondering why nobel prize distribution is so
skewed! Only absolute American domination in science prizes,
at least, for the past so many years.
Or has there been some wrong gene regulation or faulty
trascription in the rest of the humanity in other lesser
countries, eh?
Posted by: Debananda at Oct 6, 2006 7:55:03 AM
I don't believe in either the genetics or the genius of Nobel prize winners. In the age of capital-intensive, collaborative science, it's the family connections that matter.
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