Brief Chronology

  • 1918 --Born March 3rd, in Brooklyn, New York to Joseph and Lena Kornberg
  • 1933 --Completed Abraham Lincoln High School (Brooklyn); entered City College of New York (CCNY)
  • 1937 --BS from CCNY; entered University of Rochester School of Medicine
  • 1941 --MD from University of Rochester; internship in internal medicine at Strong Memorial Hospital, New York
  • 1942 --Entered U.S. Public Health Service assigned to U.S. Coast Guard; sea duty in the Caribbean as ship's doctor; transferred to Nutrition Section, National Institute of Health (NIH) (now the National Institutes of Health)
  • 1943 --Married Sylvy Ruth Levy
  • 1946 --Research training with Severo Ochoa at New York University School of Medicine
  • 1947 --Research training with Carl and Gerty Cori at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; returned to NIH to start the Enzyme Section; son Roger born
  • 1947-53 --Chief of Enzyme and Metabolism Section of National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, NIH; sons Thomas (1948) and Kenneth (1953) born
  • 1951 --Received Paul-Lewis Award in Enzyme Chemistry
  • 1953-59 --Professor and chair of Department of Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine
  • 1957 --First laboratory synthesis of DNA; elected to National Academy of Sciences
  • 1959 --Received Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with Severo Ochoa)
  • 1959-69 --Chair and professor of Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California
  • 1967 --First replication of viable virus DNA
  • 1969-88 --Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine
  • 1970 --Foreign Member, Royal Society
  • 1979 --National Medical of Science (National Science Foundation)
  • 1980 --DNAX Research Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology founded
  • 1986 --Sylvy Kornberg died after a long illness
  • 1988 --Married Charlene Walsh Levering (d. 1995)
  • 1988 - 2007 --Professor Emeritus, Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine; research focus shifted to inorganic polyphosphate (poly P)
  • 1998 --Married Carolyn Frey Dixon
  • 1999 --Dedication of the Arthur Kornberg Medical Research Building, University of Rochester
  • 2007 --Died in Stanford, California (October 26)