The
Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics
presents
The Stanley Dagley Lectureship

DR. ARTHUR KORNBERG
Nobel Laureate
Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry
Dept. of Biochemistry
Stanford University School of Medicine

"Reflections on DNA Replication and Current Studies on Inorganic Polyphosphate"
Wednesday, September 11, 2002 - 4:00pm
33 McNeal Hall

"Biotechnology: Academia and/or Business"
Thursday, September 12, 2002 - 4:00 pm
33 McNeal Hall

Arthur Kornberg

Arthur Kornberg was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1918 and educated in its public schools. He received his undergraduate degree in science from the City College of New York in 1937 and the M.D. degree from the University of Rochester in 1941. After a year’s internship in internal medicine, he served as a commissioned officer in the U. S. Public Health Service. He was first assigned to the Navy as a ship’s doctor, and then as a research scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, from 1942 to 1953. He obtained training in enzymology with Professor Severo Ochoa at New York University School of Medicine in 1946 and with Professor Carl Cori at Washington University School of Medicine in 1947. Upon returning to Bethesda, he organized and directed the Enzyme Section. He resigned in 1953 with the rank of Medical Director, to assume the chairmanship of the Department of Microbiology of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1959 he organized the Department of Biochemistry of the Stanford University School of Medicine, serving as its chairman until 1969 and thereafter as professor. He accepted the title of Professor Emeritus in 1988 and has been on active status to the present. The members of the Stanford Biochemistry Department - Robert Baldwin, Paul Berg, David Hogness, Dale Kaiser, Arthur Kornberg and Robert Lehman stayed together as a cohesive unit for forty years until retirement. From his early studies of the mechanisms of the enzymatic synthesis of coenzymes and inorganic pyrophosphate, he extended his interest to the biosynthesis of the nucleic adds, particularly DNA. After elucidating key steps in the pathways of pyrimidine and purine nucleotide synthesis, including the discovery of PRPP as an intermediate, he found the enzyme that assembles the building blocks into DNA, named DNA polymerase. This ubiquitous class of enzymes make genetically precise DNA and are essential in the replica-tion, repair and rearrangements of DNA. Many other enzymes of DNA metabolism were discovered responsible for the start and elongation of DNA chains and chromosomes. These enzymes were the basis of discovery of recombinant DNA which helped ignite the biotechnology revolution.

Since 1991, he has switched his research focus from DNA replication to inorganic polyphosphate (poly P), a polymer of phosphates that likely participated in prebiotic evolution and is now found in every bacterial, plant and animal cell. Neglected and long regarded a molecular fossil, he has found a variety of significant functions for poly P that include responses to stresses and stringencies and factors responsible for motility and virulence in some of the major pathogens.

Although the pursuit of research has been his primary concern, other interests include the formal teaching of graduate, medical and postdoctoral students, and the authorship of major monographs: DNA Synthesis in 1974, DNA Replication in 1980, Supplement to DNA Replication in 1982, and DNA Replication, Second Edition, in 1992. A scientific autobiography, For the Love of Enzymes: The Odyssey of a Biochemist, Harvard University Press, appeared in 1989. The Golden Helix: Inside Biotech Ventures, University Science Books, was released in July of 1995, and provides an insider’s view of biotechnology.

In his academic career, he has served as departmental chairman, on the committees of the Medical School and university, as president of the American Society of Biological Chemistry (1965), and on the advisory boards and councils of numerous university, governmental and industrial research institutes. He is a founder of the DNAX Research Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology (a Division of Schering-Plough, Inc.), and a member of its Policy and Scientific Advisory Boards. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Maxygen, and the XOMA Corp., and is also a member of the Board of Directors of XOMA Corp.

Among his honors are memberships in the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, American Philosophical Society, a number of honorary degrees, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1959), the National Medal of Science (1979), the Cosmos Club Award (1995) and other medals and awards.

Stanley Dagley
Regents Professor of Biochemistry
1966-1987

Stanley Dagley was Regents Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Minnesota. Known for his luminary teaching, Professor Dagley was also highly regarded for his research on microbial oxidation reactions. Dagley first studied microbial biochemistry from a thermodynamics standpoint with Chemistry Nobel Laureate Sir Cyril Hinshelwood at Oxford. He started his professorial career at the University of Leeds and then at the University of Illinois, Urbana prior to his distinguished tenure at the University of Minnesota.
Dagley received his BSc and MA from Oxford University in 1938, followed by an MSc from University of London in 1948 and a DSc in Biochemistry from the University of Leeds in 1952. He was a reader and then Professor at the University of Leeds from 1952-1966. From 1963-1964 he was a visiting Professor at the University of Illinois-Urbana, where he first isolated Pseudomonas U from a highly polluted stream near his home. In 1966 he joined the University of Minnesota’s College of Biological Science as a professor of Biochemistry. As one of the original faculty members, Dagley contributed greatly to the early success and growth of the College of Biological Sciences. His influence in the field brought many outstanding postdoctorals and visiting Professors from England to the College of Biological Science. Dagley became the American editor of Biochemical Education and was a member of the American Society of Biological Chemists, American Society of Microbiology, Biochemistry Society, and the Society of General Microbiology. Stanley Dagley’s research concentrated on enzymatic reactions used by microorganisms to degrade natural products and man-made compounds, especially those containing the benzene nucleus. His work in biodegradation has influenced current research being conducted at the University of Minnesota and elsewhere.

Stanley Dagley Lectureship
Professor Stanley Dagley inspired a legion of scientists to investigate novel and exotic microbial biochemistry using simple, but elegant, biochemical logic. Some of those he inspired have initiated the Stanley Dagley Lectureship. The Dagley Lectureship is supported by the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics.

“It is perhaps unusual to be able to pinpoint within two hours the start of fifty years’ interest in a research area. However, I well recall the sunlit morning of early summer 1937 when I called upon C.N. Hinshelwood in his rooms at Trinity College, Oxford, to find out whether he would be willing to let me join his group to do research in chemical kinetics. Yes, he was willing, but on condition that I helped him in a new venture: a study of the kinetics of growth of certain bacteria. My initial astonishment quickly gave way to dismay. As a chemist I knew almost nothing about bacteria…”

One year later.
“The first paper (1) showed that for a well-buffered medium with other nutrients in excess, the size of the bacterial crop was a linear function of the amount of carbon source (glucose) provided for growth.”
“The work described in the second (2) of the above-mentioned papers was a follow-up observation made three years earlier: When mineral salts media were thoroughly freed from CO2, the growth of several species of bacteria was delayed indefinitely.”
-- Stanley Dagley.
Lessons from Biodegradation.
Am. Rev. Microbiol. 1987. 41:1-23.

1. Dagley, S., Hinshelwood, C.N. 1938. Dependence of growth of Bact. lactis aerogenes on concentration of medium. J. Chem. Soc. 1938:1930-36.
2. Dagley, S., Hinshelwood, C.N. 1938. Quantitative dependence of growth rate of Bact. lactis aerogenes on the carbon dioxide content of the gas atmosphere. J. Chem. Soc. 1938:1936-42.