Roger D. Kornberg

Roger D. Kornberg is an American biochemist whose structural studies of RNA polymerase II and its transcription machinery earned him the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

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Arthur Kornberg: Arthur Kornberg was an American biochemist who discovered DNA polymerase and received the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Roger Kornberg’s father was a pioneering biochemist whose work on DNA replication preceded his son’s research on transcription.
RNA polymerase II: RNA polymerase II is the eukaryotic enzyme that synthesizes messenger RNA and several other RNA molecules from DNA templates. Kornberg determined structures of this enzyme that exposed its architecture and transcription cycle.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae: Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a yeast species widely used as a model organism in genetics and molecular biology. Kornberg used yeast to isolate and study the conserved machinery of eukaryotic transcription.
2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: The 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Roger D. Kornberg for his studies of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription. The award recognized the structural insights at the center of Kornberg’s scientific career.
Aaron Klug: Aaron Klug was a chemist and structural biologist who developed methods for determining structures of complex biological assemblies. Klug’s structural biology helped establish approaches used to study large molecular machines such as transcription complexes.
Transcription initiation: Transcription initiation is the assembly and activation of molecular machinery at a gene’s promoter to begin RNA synthesis. Kornberg’s structures showed how polymerase and associated factors assemble to start transcription.
RNA polymerase II core enzyme: The RNA polymerase II core enzyme is the multisubunit catalytic portion of the polymerase that synthesizes RNA from DNA. Purifying the yeast core enzyme provided a tractable starting point for Kornberg’s structural studies.
Eukaryotic transcription: Eukaryotic transcription is the synthesis of RNA from DNA by the transcription machinery of eukaryotic cells. Kornberg’s structures supplied a molecular account of this process and its regulatory machinery.
Robert Roeder: Robert Roeder is an American biochemist known for identifying eukaryotic RNA polymerases and their transcription factors. Roeder’s biochemical discoveries complemented Kornberg’s structural account of eukaryotic transcription.
Mediator complex: The Mediator complex is a multiprotein assembly that connects gene-regulatory proteins with RNA polymerase II. Kornberg’s laboratory identified and characterized Mediator as a link between regulatory signals and polymerase.