Scientist's son proves Nobel-Prize-winning breakthroughs are in the genes

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

Disturbances in that process, known as transcription, are involved in many human illnesses, including cancer, heart disease and various kinds of inflammation. Understanding transcription also is vital to the development of treatments using stem cells.

Kornberg had just spent two days travelling from Europe to his home in California when he learned of the honour.

"When the telephone first rang I was completely bewildered," he said in a telephone interview with journalists in the Swedish capital. "I'm still shaking. I hope I will be able to calm down shortly."

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.

The 59-year-old researcher said he remembered travelling 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 Irene Joliot-Curie won Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry, respectively. Marie Curie Irene's mother and Pierre's wife won two Nobel prizes, for chemistry and physics.

Roger Kornberg's work produced a detailed picture of transcription in eukaryotes, the group of organisms that includes humans and other mammals, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in its citation.

Kornberg described 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 the cell, vital to its structure and functions.

He is a member of the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California.

Kornberg is the lone winner of the 2006 chemistry prize, and the fifth American to win a Nobel prize this year. So far, all the prizes medicine, physics and chemistry have gone to Americans.

"The truly revolutionary aspect of the picture Kornberg has created is that it captures the process of transcription in full flow," the academy said in its citation. "In an ingenious manner Kornberg has managed to freeze the construction process of RNA halfway through."

Last year's Nobel laureates in chemistry were France's Yves Chauvin and Americans Robert H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock, who were honoured for discoveries that let industry develop drugs and plastics more efficiently and with less hazardous waste.

Source: China Daily