Dr. Roger Kornberg
Dr. Roger Kornberg, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, will speak in Portland, Oregon on Tuesday, April 20th. His lecture, entitled “The Molecular Basis of Eukaryotic Transcription,” will be held at the Oregon Historical Society’s Miller Pavillion at 8:00 PM. The event is free and open to the public. Seats may be reserved ahead of time by calling the Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections at 541-737-2075, or via email at special[dot]collections[at]oregonstate[dot]edu
Kornberg is visiting Oregon to receive the Linus Pauling Legacy Award, presented by the Oregon State University Libraries. This award is granted once every two years for oustanding achievement in any of Linus Pauling’s areas of research. Past recipients of the award include Daisaku Ikeda, founder of Soka Gakkai International; Nobel laureate physicist Sir Joseph Rotblat; Harvard University biologist Matthew Meselson; Caltech chemist John D. Roberts; and Nobel laureate biophysicist Roderick MacKinnon.
A Stanford University biochemist, Roger Kornberg was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his fundamental studies of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription – the process by which DNA is copied. Kornberg’s 1974 discovery of the nucleosome – the basic protein-complex packaging of chromosomal DNA in the nucleus of eukaryotic cells – marked the beginning of his work on DNA. Coupled with his most recent discovery of “The Mediator” protein complex, Kornberg’s impressive program of research has added substantially to the understanding of the mechanisms and regulation of eukaryotic transcription.
Dr. Kornberg received his B.A. in Chemistry from Harvard University and his Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from Stanford University. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England before joining the Stanford faculty. He has since co-founded Stanford’s Department of Structural Biology, the first of its kind in the United States. In 1993 he was elected to membership of the National Academy of Sciences.
In addition to the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Kornberg is the recipient of numerous scientific awards, including the 2006 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, the 2002 Léopold Mayer Prize – the highest award in biomedical sciences granted by the French Academy of Science – and the 2001 Welch prize, among the most prestigious awards available to U.S. chemists.
For more information on Roger Kornberg’s lecture, please see the event website and for more on Kornberg’s work, check out his laboratory website. As with MacKinnon’s lecture in 2008, fully-transcribed video of Kornberg’s talk will be made available in the weeks following its delivery.
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