Thomas Kornberg

Biosketch

Thomas Kornberg, PhD is Professor emeritus in the Cardiovascular Research Institute and Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. He earned his BA in Biology from Columbia College, and he earned his PhD in Biochemistry from Columbia University in the lab of Malcolm Gefter. He was a postdoctoral fellow with Abe Worcel in the Biochemistry Department at Princeton University and was a postdoctoral fellow with Peter Lawrence at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the NAS.

Research Interests

Dr. Kornberg’s research has addressed four major biological issues. His discovery and characterization of E. coli DNA polymerase III established the enzymatic mechanism of DNA polymerization in chromosomal replication. His lab’s cloning and genetic characterization of the Drosophila engrailed, cubitus interruptus and hedgehog genes established the molecular genetic basis of developmental compartments and demonstrated the role of compartment borders in the creation of developmental organizers/signaling centers. His lab’s identification of genes required and expressed during the first mitotic divisions of the Drosophila embryo demonstrated that the zygotic genome is activated and is essential for development of the pre-blastoderm embryo. His lab’s discovery and characterization of specialized signaling filopodia (called cytonemes) established that neuron-like synapses effect the transfer of signaling proteins between non-neuronal cells and that cytonemes are essential organelles that disperse morphogen signaling proteins across developmental fields.