Thomas Bill Kornberg is an American

biochemist Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. They study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. Biochemists study DNA, proteins and cell parts. The word "biochemist" is a portmanteau of "biological ch ...

who was the first person to purify and characterise DNA polymerase II and

DNA polymerase III DNA polymerase III holoenzyme is the primary enzyme complex involved in prokaryotic DNA replication. It was discovered by Thomas B. Kornberg, Thomas Kornberg (son of Arthur Kornberg) and Malcolm Gefter in 1970. The complex has high processivity ( ...

. He is currently a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It ...

, and is working on ''

Drosophila melanogaster ''Drosophila melanogaster'' is a species of fly (the taxonomic order Diptera) in the family Drosophilidae. The species is often referred to as the fruit fly or lesser fruit fly, or less commonly the " vinegar fly" or "pomace fly". Starting with ...

'' development. Kornberg's father was

Arthur Kornberg Arthur Kornberg (March 3, 1918 – October 26, 2007) was an American biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1959 for the discovery of "the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic ac ...

(1918–2007), winner of the 1959

Nobel Prize in Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, according ...

, and his older brother is Roger D. Kornberg (born 1947), winner of the 2006

Nobel Prize in Chemistry ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then "M ...

. His mother was biochemist Sylvy Kornberg.

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Thomas Kornberg and Emanuel Ax: Scientist and Musician- Beethoven’s Cello Sonata No. 3 in A major, 1st movement
1948 births Living people American biochemists Jewish American scientists University of California, San Francisco faculty Scientists from St. Louis Columbia College (New York) alumni 21st-century American Jews {{US-biochemist-stub